In Matthew 15 Jesus begins traveling over a geographically wide area stretching from the shores of Gennesaret (cf. Matt 14:34) to the region of Tyre and Sidon (Matt 15:21) and back, and then crisscrossing the Sea of Galilee by boat (Matt 15:29, 39). These travels enable Jesus to minister to people who were generally avoided by the Jews, including a Canaanite woman and Gentiles who inhabited the Decapolis region. The chapter opens with an accusation by the scribes and Pharisees, which enables Jesus to begin breaking down walls of separation that oral traditions had erected not only between Jews and Gentiles (cf. Eph 2:14–15), but between Jews who observed these traditions and those who did not. The chapter is comprised of four parts: 1) the handwashing dispute (Matt 15:1–20), 2) delivering the Canaanite woman’s daughter from demon possession (Matt 15:21–28), 3) healing the handicapped (Matt 15:29–31), and 4) feeding the four thousand (Matt 15:32–39).

Interpretation of Matthew 15

1. Verses 1–20

• Apparently, by now Jesus is considered a serious enough threat to require a special delegation of scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem to investigate, not unlike the delegation of priests and Levites sent to John the Baptist (John 1:19).

• The “tradition of the elders” (described briefly in Mark 7:3–4) was a layer of oral Pharisaic teachings specifying how the law was to be kept under a multiplicity of circumstances and conditions. “The rules in regard to purification were numberless. The period of a lifetime was scarcely sufficient for one to learn them all.”¹

• The handwashing referred to here was not to remove physical dirt, but to purify hands that could have become ritually defiled as a result of possible contact with Gentiles—an unbiblical idea even Peter found difficult to relinquish (Acts 10:14, 28).

• Understood in this light, the saying of Jesus about food (cf. Mark 7:19), rather than cancelling the Levitical laws regarding clean and unclean foods (Lev 11; Deut 14), denies the Pharisaic notion of hand defilement and directs attention to what comes out of the heart—evil thoughts and actions “defile” a person with sin (Matt 15:19–20).

• The sins listed by Jesus correspond to the ten commandments: evil thoughts (tenth), murders (sixth), adulteries and fornications (seventh), thefts (eighth), false witness (ninth), and blasphemies (third).²

• It was from such unbiblical traditions surrounding “the yoke of the law” (referring more broadly to the Mosaic law) that Jesus sought to free Israel (Matt 11:28–30; cf. 23:4; Acts 15:10) and to redirect attention to what really matters—keeping the commandments of God (cf. 1 Cor 7:19)—which, ironically, some scrupulous keepers of these traditions were transgressing (see Exod 20:12; 21:17; Lev 19:3; 20:9).

• Jesus points to the Pharisaic principle of “Corban” (meaning “offering,” Mark 7:11), which enabled people to consecrate funds to the temple while retaining them for their own use.³ This principle, based on the laws dealing with sacrificial offerings (qorban is used seventy-seven times in Leviticus and Numbers; e.g., Lev 1:2; 2:1), was used to bypass the Mosaic law, which required payment of a 20% penalty to take back for one’s own use something previously dedicated to the Lord (Lev 27:15). Later rabbinic legislation shows this loophole was eventually closed.⁴

• In 1959 an ossuary inscription dating to the first century BC that uses the qorban formula was discovered: “All that a man may-find-to-his-profit in this ossuary (is) an offering to God from him who is within it.”⁵

• Not honoring one’s parents fails also to honor God and His law, unless to do so would conflict with another divine command (Matt 10:37).

• In response to the offense taken by the Pharisees at Jesus’ saying on food, which so worried the disciples, Jesus utters two judgment sayings:

  1. Plants not planted by the heavenly Father (i.e., the Pharisees and their teachings) will be uprooted (cf. 2 Chr 7:19–20; Ps 52:3–5; Matt 13:29).

  2. As “blind leaders of the blind,” both groups will stumble and fall. The implication of these sayings is that truth cannot be uprooted, and also that false teachers and all who follow them will ultimately perish.

2. Verses 21–28

• The region Tyre and Sidon (from which Jezebel came, 1 Kgs 16:31), while predominantly inhabited by Gentiles, was also home to many Jews (as implied in Matt 15:24). But Jesus takes advantage of the mixed population to impress upon His disciples an important lesson.

• The term “Canaanite” seems to have remained a derisive Jewish designation for pagans⁶ but the expression “woman of Canaan” is more neutral, identifying her geographically as from Phoenicia.

• The severity of the daughter’s demon possession is emphasized, but also the mother’s budding faith, as witnessed by her addressing Jesus as “Lord” and “Son of David” (cf. Matt 9:27; 20:30) Apparently, Jesus tests that faith and the disciples by initially ignoring her request. But, in fact, as the story goes to show, she was one of “the lost sheep” whom Jesus came to save (cf. Luke 15:4–7).

• In answer to her second, even more urgent plea, again addressing Jesus as Lord, Jesus replies with a parable. In the previous episode He had referred to His opponents as plants to be uprooted and blind men. Now He calls Jews “the children” and the Gentiles (such as this woman) “dogs.” But Jesus uses the affectionate form kynariois (lit. “little dogs”), a hint that she now takes up by claiming that even a dog may belong to the household and deserve some of the crumbs falling from the table of their “masters”—using the same word, kyrioi (“lords”), implying perhaps that she accepts Jesus as her Lord and Master.

• Jesus’ astonished reply is similar to His response to the centurion’s faith (Matt 8:10, 13) and shows that Gentiles indeed have a place within a larger, inclusive Israel in harmony with God’s intention (see, e.g., Isa 49:6–7; 56:6–8; Mic 4:1–3; cf. Acts 15:14–17).

3. Verses 29–31

• Both Matthew and Mark record Jesus returning to the Sea of Galilee and healing, but Matthew describes Jesus healing a variety of ailments whereas Mark focuses on a particularly challenging case of a man who was both deaf and mute (Mark 7:31–37).

• It appears that since the people “glorified the God of Israel” (Matt 15:31), it was an area predominantly inhabited by Gentiles.

4. Verses 32–39

• Interestingly, Ellen G. White places these events and the mountain where Jesus taught in the Decapolis region where He had healed the demoniacs of Gergesa and indicates that multitudes desired to listen to Jesus because of their witness.⁷

• Knowing that the crowds this time were largely Gentile is helpful in understanding the disciples’ response to the second feeding miracle. While they could no longer doubt that Jesus could miraculously feed these thousands, their “Jewish prejudice” against eating with Gentiles prevented them from believing that He would.⁸

• Just as God the Father loves everyone and wills all “to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4; cf. Matt 5:45), so Jesus feels “compassion” for both Jewish and Gentile crowds (Matt 14:14; 15:32; cf. 9:36; 20:34).

• As with the feeding of the five thousand, Matthew explicitly indicates that the count of four thousand did not include women and children (cf. Matt 14:21; Exod 12:37), so that the total number fed may have exceeded ten thousand.

• Returning by boat to the western shores of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus returns to Jewish territory. Neither the area of Magadan (ESV) nor the name Dalmanutha, given in the parallel passage of Mark 8:10, is known to us. Other manuscripts, though, identify the area as Magdala,⁹ the home of Mary Magdalene, located about three miles northwest of Tiberius.

Application of the Chapter

Many valuable lessons may be gleaned from Matthew 15, including:

1. The paramount importance of not only a biblically-based, but also a heart-based spirituality from which our outward actions spring, because we care most about what God thinks rather than just what other people think.

2. For our worship to be acceptable to God, it must be “in spirit” as well as “in truth” (John 4:23–24), a coherence of inward and outward religion as the prophets repeatedly insist (see, e.g., Isa 29:13; Jer 7:3–11; Mic 6:6–8).

3. The key ingredient from start to finish in following Jesus is faith, itself a gift (Heb 12:1–2), illustrated best in the Gospels not by the Jewish followers of Jesus, but by Gentiles (Matt 8:10; 15:28). In every difficulty, a prayer for mercy, such as the Canaanite woman expressed, is the way forward. “Why should the sons and daughters of God be reluctant to pray, when prayer is the key in the hand of faith to unlock heaven’s storehouse, where are treasured the boundless resources of Omnipotence?”¹⁰

4. If Jesus reigns in our hearts, we will have compassion on everyone irrespective of their differences from us. We will mingle with them because we desire their good, showing sympathy for them and ministering to their needs with the aim of winning their confidence and trust so that they will accept our invitation to join us in following Jesus.¹¹