Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Mark 7:24-37, A Greek woman and a deaf man
In the region of Tyre a Gentile mother asks Jesus to free her daughter, and answers his saying about dogs. In the Decapolis he heals a deaf man.
Mark 7:24-37, in every translation this tool compares.
Near Tyre, in Gentile territory, a Greek mother begs Jesus to free her daughter from a demon. He answers with a saying about feeding Israel first, and she turns it back on him so deftly that he grants her request. On his way back through the Decapolis he heals a man who could neither hear nor speak clearly, using touch and an Aramaic word.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/unclean-by-touch\/","n":"Unclean by touch","s":"Under the law, skin disease, bleeding, corpses, tombs and certain animals made a person ritually unclean, and touch could pass it on.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/honor-and-shame\/","n":"Honor before a crowd","s":"Public standing was the currency of the ancient Mediterranean. People competed for honor and dreaded being shamed in front of others.","r":""}
Keener notes that this is the region where God once answered Elijah's prayer for a woman's child (1 Kings 17:9-24). Bailey reads the scene as Jesus deliberately reenacting the Elijah story for the education of his disciples. Josephus calls the people of Tyre bitter enemies of the Jews, and Tyre drew its food from Galilee (Acts 12:20), so the saying about bread lands in a setting of resentment (Garland). Sidon lies about twenty-five miles north of Tyre, and the roundabout route of 7:31 may have kept Jesus out of Antipas's reach (Garland). Suetonius tells of Vespasian healing with his spittle in Alexandria, a sign of the belief that a revered person's saliva could heal (Garland).
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Mark 7:24, 7:26, 7:27, 7:31, 7:33 and 7:34
- Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, ch. 16, The Syro-Phoenician Woman
- ESV Study Bible, study note on Mark 7:27
- David E. Garland, Mark, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, on Mark 7:24, 7:31 and 7:33-34
