And she answered and said unto him, {p} Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs.

(p) As if she said, It is as thou sayest Lord, for it is enough for the dogs if they can but gather up the crumbs that are under the table; therefore I crave the crumbs and not the children's bread.

Scofield Reference Notes

Margin And she

She, however, answered, saying, True, Lord! and yet the little dogs under the table eat from the children's crumbs. Rom 11:24 Eph 2:11-22.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

28. And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord-or, as the same word is rendered in Mt 15:27. "Truth, Lord."

yet the dogs eat of the children's crumbs-"which fall from their master's table" (Mt 15:27). "I thank Thee, O blessed One, for that word! That's my whole case. Not of the children? True. A dog? True also: Yet the dogs under the table are allowed to eat of the children's crumbs-the droppings from their master's full table: Give me that, and I am content: One crumb of power and grace from Thy table shall cast the devil out of my daughter." Oh, what lightning quickness, what reach of instinctive ingenuity, do we behold in this heathen woman!

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:24-30 Christ never put any from him that fell at his feet, which a poor trembling soul may do. As she was a good woman, so a good mother. This sent her to Christ. His saying, Let the children first be filled, shows that there was mercy for the Gentiles, and not far off. She spoke, not as making light of the mercy, but magnifying the abundance of miraculous cures among the Jews, in comparison with which a single cure was but as a crumb. Thus, while proud Pharisees are left by the blessed Saviour, he manifests his compassion to poor humbled sinners, who look to him for children's bread. He still goes about to seek and save the lost.