<p>15:23- see on 14:15.</p>
<p><em>But he did not answer her-</em>&nbsp;Another case of the apparent silence of the Lord, seen also in His not coming immediately to Lazarus when He received news of his sickness, His appearance of walking past the drowning disciples on the lake, and making as if He would go further on the way to Emmaus (cp. Is. 30:18). And, we might add, in His apparent delay in returning to establish the Kingdom, along with countless examples from human lives today. But this delay and silence is not at all from disinterest and hard heartedness, let alone distraction with other issues. We are accustomed to human lack of response to us being because of those things, and we can too easily assume that the Lord&rsquo;s apparent lack of response is for similar reasons. But the Bible, and the Gospels especially, surely make it clear that the lack of response is indeed only apparent- it is ultimately part of a larger spiritual plan for our eternal good at our latter end. In this case, the silence elicited in the woman a depth of understanding and intensity of hope and faith which perhaps she had not had previously. For she didn&rsquo;t shrug and walk away, muttering that all Jews were snobs and elitists. Instead, she considered that indeed, she was not worthy of any response, and yet seeing that this Son of David was the epitome of God&rsquo;s grace, she renewed her faith and appeal. Instead of shrugging and walking off, &ldquo;she worshipped Him&rdquo; (:25), in the spirit of Job, who said he would trust God even if He slew him (Job 13:15). And was rewarded.&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>And his disciples came [pros-erchomai]&nbsp;and begged him, saying- </em>The woman &ldquo;came&rdquo; (<em>erchomai</em>) and worshipped Him (:25). The coming of the disciples to Jesus and begging Him (to send the woman away)&nbsp;<em>and being rejected</em>&nbsp;is clearly matched in the record by the woman coming to Jesus (a related word is used), begging Him-&nbsp;<em>and having her request accepted</em>. Again, the Gospel writers are presenting themselves negatively, in humility recognizing that their way of rejecting the Gentiles and turning people away was&nbsp;<em>wrong</em>. This of course had great significance in the communities of believers which were formed as a result of Matthew&rsquo;s Gospel being believed. For the tendency to turn away Gentile believers was very strong.</p>
<p><em>Send her away</em>- The very word the disciples had recently used in requesting the Lord to &lsquo;send away&rsquo; the hungry crowds (14:15). He intended them to learn from their mistake, and so providentially they were presented with another case of someone whom they were tempted to &ldquo;send away&rdquo;. And they failed the test. And so in the feeding of the 4000 which now follows in the record, they are again presented with a temptation to &ldquo;send away&rdquo; the crowds (15:32)- and again, they fail. Surely Matthew is bringing out the point that they had failed miserably to grasp this point- that the Lord&rsquo;s followers are tempted to send away those whom He will not send away. This point was of extreme practical relevance amongst groups of Jewish converts who were tempted to &lsquo;send away&rsquo; Gentile converts from table fellowship. It&rsquo;s just possible that the disciples were using the term &ldquo;send away&rdquo; in the sense that it is sometimes used elsewhere- to loose, to send away with the request granted (18:27; Lk. 13:12; 14:4). But it seems to me from the surrounding context of the sending away of the crowds that we are intended to read this as the disciples yet again wanting someone to be refused by Jesus, when He wanted to accept them.&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>For she cries out after us-</em>&nbsp;The Greek&nbsp;<em>opisthen</em>, &ldquo;after&rdquo;, really means &lsquo;behind&rsquo;; and the word used for &lsquo;crying&rsquo; is literally &lsquo;to growl or croak&rsquo;. This is the language of an unwanted dog running behind men and irritating them with the noise of its barking. This paves the way for the language of the woman as a pestering dog (see on :25&nbsp;<em>worshipped Him</em>). But there is also a sadly typical attitude displayed here- &lsquo;This person is irritating <em>us</em>, therefore, we deny them a relationship with the Lord personally&rsquo;. So many of those called to Christ are indeed irritating types- it is the &lsquo;normal&rsquo;, calm, self-satisfied types who fail to perceive their need for Him.&nbsp;</p>