Matthew 15: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem accuse Jesus' disciples of breaking the tradition of the elders by not washing their hands before eating, and Jesus answers that their own tradition cancels God's command about honoring parents. He tells the crowd that what comes out of a person's mouth, coming from the heart, is what makes him unclean, not what goes into it. Jesus then leaves for the region of Tyre and Sidon, where a Canaanite woman persuades him to heal her demon-troubled daughter, and afterward he heals crowds by the Sea of Galilee and feeds four thousand men, besides women and children, with seven loaves and a few small fish.

Claim by Claim

1. 15:1
   • Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus.
   • They came from Jerusalem.
   • They spoke to him.
2. 15:2
   • They asked why his disciples transgress the tradition of the elders.
   • They said the disciples do not wash their hands when they eat bread.
3. 15:3
   • Jesus answered them.
   • He asked why they themselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of their tradition.
4. 15:4
   • Jesus said that God said, Honor your father and mother.
   • Jesus said that God said, He who speaks evil of father or mother must be put to death.
5. 15:5
   • Jesus said that they say otherwise.
   • He said their rule is: whoever says to his father or mother, Whatever benefit you might have received from me is a gift.
6. 15:6
   • He said that such a person then does not honor his father or his mother.
   • The King James adds that such a person shall be free of the obligation.
   • Jesus said they have annulled the word of God for the sake of their tradition.
7. 15:7
   • Jesus called them hypocrites.
   • Jesus said Isaiah prophesied rightly about them.
8. 15:8
   • The prophecy says this people draws near to God with their mouth.
   • The prophecy says this people honors God with their lips.
   • The prophecy says their heart is far from God.
9. 15:9
   • The prophecy says they worship God in vain.
   • The prophecy says they teach as doctrines the commandments of men.
10. 15:10
    • Jesus called the crowd to him.
    • He told them to hear and to understand.
11. 15:11
    • Jesus said what goes into the mouth does not defile a person.
    • Jesus said what comes out of the mouth defiles a person.
12. 15:12
    • The disciples came to Jesus.
    • They asked if he knew that the Pharisees were offended when they heard the saying.
13. 15:13
    • Jesus answered.
    • He said every plant that his heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted.
14. 15:14
    • Jesus said to leave them alone.
    • He said they are blind guides of the blind.
    • He said that if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.
15. 15:15
    • Peter answered Jesus.
    • Peter asked him to explain the parable to them.
16. 15:16
    • Jesus asked whether they too are still without understanding.
17. 15:17
    • Jesus asked whether they do not understand that everything entering the mouth goes into the belly.
    • He said it is expelled into the latrine.
18. 15:18
    • Jesus said the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart.
    • He said those things defile a person.
19. 15:19
    • Jesus said that out of the heart come evil thoughts.
    • He said murders come out of the heart.
    • He said adulteries come out of the heart.
    • He said sexual immoralities come out of the heart.
    • He said thefts come out of the heart.
    • He said false testimonies come out of the heart.
    • He said slanders come out of the heart.
20. 15:20
    • Jesus said these are the things that defile a person.
    • He said eating with unwashed hands does not defile a person.
21. 15:21
    • Jesus went out from that place.
    • He withdrew into the region of Tyre and Sidon.
22. 15:22
    • A Canaanite woman came out from those borders.
    • She cried out to him.
    • She asked him to have mercy on her.
    • She called him Lord.
    • She called him son of David.
    • She said her daughter was badly demon-possessed.
23. 15:23
    • Jesus did not answer her a word.
    • His disciples came to him.
    • They asked him to send her away.
    • They said she keeps crying out after them.
24. 15:24
    • Jesus answered.
    • He said he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
25. 15:25
    • The woman came.
    • She bowed down before him.
    • She called him Lord.
    • She asked him to help her.
26. 15:26
    • Jesus answered.
    • He said it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.
27. 15:27
    • She agreed with him.
    • She called him Lord.
    • She said the dogs eat from the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.
28. 15:28
    • Jesus answered her.
    • He addressed her as woman.
    • He said her faith was great.
    • He said it would be done for her as she wished.
    • Her daughter was healed from that hour.
29. 15:29
    • Jesus moved on from there.
    • He came alongside the Sea of Galilee.
    • He went up on the mountain.
    • He sat down there.
30. 15:30
    • Large crowds came to him.
    • They brought with them the lame.
    • They brought the maimed.
    • They brought the blind.
    • They brought the mute.
    • They brought many others.
    • They laid them at his feet.
    • He healed them.
31. 15:31
    • The crowd marveled.
    • They saw the mute speaking.
    • They saw the maimed made whole.
    • They saw the lame walking.
    • They saw the blind seeing.
    • They glorified the God of Israel.
32. 15:32
    • Jesus called his disciples to him.
    • He said he had compassion on the crowd.
    • He said they had remained with him three days already.
    • He said they have nothing to eat.
    • He said he does not want to send them away hungry.
    • He said they might collapse on the way.
33. 15:33
    • The disciples asked him where they would get enough loaves in a desolate place.
    • They asked how such a crowd could be satisfied.
34. 15:34
    • Jesus asked them how many loaves they had.
    • They said seven.
    • They said they had a few small fish.
35. 15:35
    • He commanded the crowd to recline on the ground.
36. 15:36
    • He took the seven loaves and the fish.
    • He gave thanks.
    • He broke them.
    • He gave them to the disciples.
    • The disciples gave them to the crowds.
37. 15:37
    • They all ate.
    • They were satisfied.
    • They took up the leftover broken pieces.
    • The leftovers filled seven large baskets.
38. 15:38
    • Those who ate were four thousand men.
    • This count did not include women and children.
39. 15:39
    • He sent the crowds away.
    • He got into the boat.
    • He came into the region of Magadan, which the King James calls Magdala.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

15:1

Scribes were the professional experts in the written law of Moses: the men who copied it, taught it and gave rulings on how it applied. The Pharisees were a movement rather than a profession, known for extending the purity rules of the temple into ordinary daily life. That these men came from Jerusalem marks this as a delegation from the religious center, not a local complaint.

15:2

The tradition of the elders was a body of oral rulings handed down from earlier teachers alongside the written law, spelling out how to keep it in practice. The handwashing in question was a ritual rinse before eating, a matter of ceremonial purity rather than hygiene; the written law of Moses required such washing only of priests.

15:4

Two quotations from the law of Moses: Exodus 20:12 and Exodus 21:17. To curse a parent meant formally calling down harm on them, not merely speaking rudely. The King James "let him die the death" reproduces a Hebrew idiom that doubles the verb for emphasis: he shall surely be put to death.

15:5

The practice referred to is a vow that declared a piece of property or income dedicated to God, in effect reserved for the temple. Mark preserves the actual word used, "corban." Once the declaration was made, the son could argue that the money was no longer his to spend on his parents, though in practice he might go on using it himself.

15:6

"Made ... of none effect" means cancelled, robbed of its force.

15:7

The Greek word behind "Ye hypocrites" originally meant a stage actor, someone delivering lines from behind a mask. "Esaias" is simply the Greek form of the name Isaiah.

15:8

The quotation in verses 8 and 9 is Isaiah 29:13, in the wording of the Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures that Matthew's first readers used.

15:9

"In vain" means pointlessly, achieving nothing. "Doctrines" means settled, authoritative teaching. The charge is that human rules were being given the standing of God's own instruction.

15:11

"Defile" here does not mean make dirty or make wicked. It is the language of ritual purity: to be unclean was to be temporarily unfit to take part in worship, a status that certain foods, contacts and conditions could bring about. The whole argument of the chapter turns on what actually produces that state.

15:12

The Greek verb behind "were offended" means to be tripped up, as by a stone in the path. It is stronger than hurt feelings: they were brought up short, made to stumble.

15:14

"Ditch" in the King James means a pit or hole in the ground, of the sort left by digging beside a field or track, not a drainage channel. A guide for the blind was a familiar figure, which is what makes the picture of a blind one absurd.

15:15

"Parable" translates a Greek word with a wider range than the English one. It covers comparisons, proverbs and riddling sayings of any kind. Peter is asking for the sense of a puzzling remark, not for the moral of a story.

15:17

"The draught" is the King James word for the privy or latrine.

15:19

The middle of this list runs through the second half of the Ten Commandments in order: murder, adultery, theft, false testimony. "False witness" means lying evidence given in a legal case. "Blasphemies" translates a Greek word meaning abusive or slanderous speech, used both of insults against God and, as here, of speech that tears down other people.

15:21

"Coasts" in the King James means borders or territory, not seashore. Tyre and Sidon were Phoenician port cities on the Mediterranean north of Galilee, outside Jewish territory and long associated with foreign worship. Jesus is crossing out of Jewish country into Gentile country.

15:22

Calling her a woman of Canaan uses an ancient name: the Canaanites were the peoples Israel displaced centuries earlier, so the label marks her as an outsider of the oldest kind. Mark, telling the same story, calls her a Syrophoenician. "Son of David" was a title for the promised king descended from David, a striking thing for a foreigner to use. The King James "devil" here translates a word meaning a demon, one of many, not the devil himself.

15:23

"Besought" means urged or begged.

15:24

"The house of Israel" means the people descended from Israel, the second name of Jacob: the Jewish nation as a whole. "Lost sheep" was a standing prophetic image for that people left without proper shepherding.

15:25

The King James "worshipped" translates a verb describing a physical act: dropping to the knees and bowing low. It was the normal gesture before a king or a great man, and does not by itself say what she believed about him.

15:26

Children and dogs are both household words here: the bread belongs to the family at the table, and the dogs are the household animals underfoot, not strays. The Greek uses a diminutive form, something like the little dogs of the house, which is what lets the woman take up the image in the next verse. Jews sometimes used "dogs" as a dismissive term for non-Jews.

15:27

"Truth, Lord" means yes, that is true. She accepts the picture and argues from inside it: house dogs sit under the table while the family eats, so they are fed from the same meal without anything being taken away from the children.

15:28

"Be it unto thee even as thou wilt" means let it be done for you exactly as you want it.

15:29

Sitting down was the ordinary posture of a teacher in this world, as standing is for a modern lecturer. The detail signals that he settled in to teach and be approached, not that he was tired.

15:30

"Dumb" in the King James means unable to speak, with no suggestion of stupidity. "Maimed" means having a limb crippled or damaged. To "cast them down" at his feet means simply to set them down there, without any violence implied.

15:31

"Wondered" means were astonished. "The God of Israel" is the phrase an outsider would use, naming him as the God of one particular nation as distinct from other gods; this side of the lake had a large non Jewish population.

15:32

"Fasting" here carries its plain older sense of having gone without food, not the religious practice of fasting. The concern is that people will collapse on a long walk home on empty stomachs.

15:33

"Wilderness" in the King James means uninhabited open country, rough grazing land with no towns and no food to buy. It does not mean sandy desert.

15:34

A loaf of this period was a flat round cake of bread, roughly the size of a large modern pita and about one person's portion at a meal, not a sliceable modern loaf.

15:36

"Gave thanks" refers to the customary Jewish blessing spoken over food at the start of a meal. "Brake" is the old past tense of break; this bread was torn apart by hand, not cut.

15:37

"Meat" in the King James means food of any kind, so "the broken meat" is simply the broken pieces of bread and fish. The word used for these baskets is different from the one in the earlier feeding of the five thousand: this is a large hamper, the kind that could hold a man, rather than a small hand basket.

15:38

Reporting only the number of men was the standard way of giving a crowd size, so the actual number of people present was considerably higher.

15:39

"Took ship" means got into a boat. Magdala was a fishing town on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee; some ancient copies of Matthew read Magadan instead. Either way Jesus has crossed back to the Jewish side of the lake.