Join me! 📢 Amy Jill Levine is out with a brand new commentary on the Gospel According to John, and I want to lead us through a virtual, asynchronous study. Totally free to participate but you’ll need to grab the book on your own. I’m running the six week study between October 14 and November 18. I’d really love as many people to participate as interested! I’m setting the minimum threshold at 15 people to hold the study. Details and sign-up form are are available here. A go/no-go email will go out by October 7 based on meeting the sign-up threshold, so you can hold off on book purchases until then if you want to be sure we hit the number. Or invite a friend to study with us to boost the numbers! I hope you’ll join.
It’s Sunday and that means it’s gospel through a Jewish lens day on Hitzonim! We’re hanging with the goyim in Tyre! There are two stories in this portion of Matthew, but I’m only treating the first story about the Syrophoenician woman. Let’s go!
From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” And when she went home, she found the child lying on the bed and the demon gone (from Mark 7:24-37 NRSVUE).
Now read this. It’s a different pace and tone, so take a beat.
Who has planned this
against Tyre, the bestower of crowns,
whose merchants were princes,
whose traders were the honored of the earth?
The Lord of hosts has planned it—
to defile the pride of all glory,
to shame all the honored of the earth.
Cross over to your own land,
O ships of Tarshish;
this is a harbor no more.
He has stretched out his hand over the sea;
he has shaken the kingdoms;
the Lord has given command concerning Canaan,
to destroy its fortresses (from Isaiah 23 NRSVUE).
Do you want to know who did this to you, Tryre? You think you’re something with the wealth to give crowns and your marketplace so thriving that princes are running the shops? Your dealers may be internationally known, but do you know who has the power to destroy your fortresses? It’s Adonai, the God of Israel. And to you ships docked for trade, get back to your dock in Tarshish. This place is no longer a harbor for you.
Here’s another:
The word of the Lord came to me: Mortal, say to the prince of Tyre: Thus says the Lord God: Because you compare your mind
with the mind of a god,
therefore, I will bring strangers against you,
the most terrible of the nations;
they shall draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom
and defile your splendor.
They shall thrust you down to the Pit,
and you shall die a violent death
in the heart of the seas.
Will you still say, “I am a god,”
in the presence of those who kill you,
though you are but a mortal and no god,
in the hands of those who pierce you?
You shall die the death of the uncircumcised
by the hand of foreigners,
for I have spoken, says the Lord God (from Ezekiel 28 NRSVUE).
This one is more straightforward. The King of Tyre has considered himself like a God. “Are you going to say ‘I’m a God’ while you’re being killed by the nations I raise up against you?” says Adonai. That’s brutal, man. I mean it’s pretty dark, and no shade to the non-Jews in the audience, but “You shall die the death of the uncircumcised”? That’s a great taunt! Well, it’s ethnocentric and prejudiced, but if contemporary Christians can use “Pharisee” as a slur, I don’t mind dropping a “die the death of the uncircumcised” every so often!
In the Hebrew Bible, Tyre and Sidon are frequently mentioned as prominent cities known for their wealth and trade. Tyre is often depicted as a powerful and influential city, sometimes referred to as a “daughter of Sidon” by the prophet Isaiah, indicating its history. The cities are noted for their fortified structures, which the tribe of Asher couldn’t conquer when entering the Land (Joshua 19.24-31). If you’re reading the Thursday Parsha posts, we’re working through Deuteronomy, setting the stage for the biblical history to follow in Joshua! See how knowledge is cumulative.
No surprise, the Bible depicts the Phoenicians (Canaanites), including the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon, as engaging in practices of other religions, which has drawn harsh criticism from the text.
This region is accused of being too wealthy, too grand, too prosperous, too haughty, too convinced of their own wisdom, and engaged in practices against the God of Israel. It is the same region that Jesus visits within the Markan narrative of Mark 7.24-37 and its Matthean parallel (Matthew 15.21-24).
Here’s how I’ve been thinking about this story this week. As the prophetic tradition in Isaiah and Ezekiel shows, there’s a lot of disdain, maybe some envy toward Tyre; this is a wealthy port city with lots of trade. Imagine being on the agrarian land to the south, subsistence farming. The general region is Canaanite, and we’ve read in our Parsha posts about some of the awful things said about Canaanites in Torah to criticize its idol worship.
Tyre was a busy place with traffic and trade. A wealthy city. Add to that the wealth disparity between the port city and the agrarian folk and fishers south around the Sea of Galilee, and then consider the generations of disdain toward the region reflected through sacred literature. I think for a lot of first-century Jews, it’s probably like, “Man, Tyre, fuck those guys.” That’s harsh, but the Markan author has Jesus first refer to the woman from this region as a “dog,” so I don’t think I’m too off base.
Let’s think about this. If you’re the Markan author, and you have a mixed Jewish and non-Jewish movement that is looking to grow, a trip to the busy port city of Tyre makes a lot of sense. Not to mention, if Mark’s gospel is composed in Antioch, Syria, as is the consensus, if not Rome, the other proposed place of composition, then Tyre is practically a regional neighbor from Antioch or a city known for its trade, from Rome. Jerusalem is some 300 miles south of here, so we’re definitely stretching the boundaries of the people of Israel here. Interestingly, the parallel in Matthew has Jesus questioning his trip to Tyre, “I was sent to the lost sheep from the House of Israel,” which is Jesus’s initial missionary focus early in Matthew before the outreach to all nations with the Great Commission late in Matthew.
Placing Jesus in Tyre is very Markan. The story is told with such irony. Mark says, “He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there.” But he’s recognized immediately! Did Jesus think, or would the Markan author have us think, that Jesus was seeking some anonymity in the busy city? In the way that people can be anonymous in bustling areas. Or should we contrast Jesus’s identification by a non-Jewish woman in a mostly Greek-influenced city with Jesus’s rejection in his hometown only a chapter earlier in Mark 6? All of this strikes me as tapping into ironic themes present in Mark and its Messianic Secret theme where only some people seem to know Jesus’s identity. Recall that motif may also be a way for the Markan author to explain why more Jews were not following Jesus. We’re not going to take up that debate here.
There is a thematic presentation in this story that is consistent with how I understand the pericope. We’re encountering one of those “I don’t know if this happened, but I know this is true” moments. Whether Jesus, the historical figure, did indeed travel to Tyre as reported in Mark? Anyone’s guess. If you were an itinerant preacher with a message you considered to be urgent to deliver, and you wanted to reach as many people as possible, a trip to the port city of Tyre checks the boxes. But need the story have happened to extract the Markan meaning of tell it?
If you are writing a sort of mishmash of heroic-biography-meets-apocalyptic-history told through biblical history, the way the JANT suggests we read Mark, the plot drives the message. Using Tyre as the location creates a setting where you can proclaim something about Jesus by retelling another biblical history—also, very Markan. Here’s the biblical history I’m talking about that I think Mark’s author was tapping into and retelling with Jesus at the center:
Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there, for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.” As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” But she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.” Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said, but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.” She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah (1 Kings 17:8-16 NRSVUE).
This story of Elijah the prophet, who also feeds multitudes from very little, just like in this story, is located in the same region as the Markan story. The Elijah version includes similar details of interacting with a non-Jewish woman who is caring for a child, and a reference to food is what moves the plot. In the Elijah story, God blesses the meal, and the oil never runs out. Man, my people love those oil miracles, amiright? I’ll take Hanukkah for $400. Bring on the latkes and sufganiyot!
In the Markan narrative, the woman’s reply to Jesus about dogs eating the crumbs from the children reaches Jesus. The trust in provision for all, Jew and Gentile alike, is present here in the Markan account, as it is in the Elijah story.
These stories are linked by their shocking details. Women, especially single and widowed women, are in extremely vulnerable social statuses. And a non-Jewish woman! This region has a long and contentious history of animosity with the people of Israel. These stories challenge status quo dynamics. These stories show compassion and humanity for their main characters, Jesus and Elijah. And these stories are linked for their endorsement of caring for those outside the traditional ethnoreligious boundaries.
Back to the “I don’t know if this happened” motif, the similarities between the Elijah and Jesus stories may be only coincidental. I don’t have the evidence to argue that the Markan author is inspired by the Deuteronomistic Historian of the Kings narrative with Elijah or the Joshua description of Tyre. What I would feel comfortable saying is that if Mark’s author is telling a Jesus biography through biblical history, and the Elijah narrative is already present in the text, which it would be at the time of Mark’s composition, then retelling Elijah’s story of outreach and compassion for a non-Jewish woman to signal care for all people, and placing Jesus at the center of the retelling, would be an effective strategy.
Once again, one of our gospel proclamations about Jesus who they called the Christ shows deep engagement with the scriptures of Israel to refine and deliver a message about their movement. Like Elijah, a prophet of significance, displays a willingness to break ethnoreligious and cultural identity markers, so does the Jesus of the gospels who is wrestling with the movement’s growth.
I think the commentary is satisfying. Mark and its Matthean parallel bring Jewish tradition to bear on the Jesus movement to lend credibility and precedent for non-Jewish outreach and care for all people. I don’t think the Jesus story is particularly unique in Jewish tradition, but I see that as a feature of this text, not a bug. This is yet more evidence that the Jesus movement was steeped in Jewish tradition, and our modern interpretation should see the early Christians as extending that tradition through their circumstances, not seeking to replace it.
Christianity and Judaism are different traditions from a common starting point, and I find the rootedness of emerging Christianity in Jewish tradition to enhance our understanding of the Jesus movement rather than undermine it. Both stories remind us that repairing the world is a non-exclusive instruction that extends beyond the boundaries of who we consider to be the in crowd, even toward those with whom we’ve historically held an attitude of animosity.
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Hitzonim | Outsiders 
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