And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table.
Ver. 27. Truth, Lord] Ναι, Κυριε. This is particula assentientis et obsecrantis. How strangely doth God enable and enlarge his weak people many times in prayer! they are carried beyond themselves in a wonderful manner, and though otherwise rude in speech, and unlettered, yet then they have words at will, far above natural apprehension, and such as they are not able to repeat again; being, for the time, lost in the endless maze of spiritual ravishments, and ascending, with the Church, in those pillars of incense, out of this wilderness of the world, Song of Solomon 5:6 .
Yet the dogs eat of the crumbs] Lo, she locks herself within Christ's denial, and picks an argument of speeding out of a repulse; she gathereth one contrary out of another by the force of her faith. See the like, Deuteronomy 32:36; 2 Kings 14:26. Going into captivity was a sign of the Israelites returning out of captivity. Be it that I am a dog, saith this brave woman, yet some crumbs of comfort, Lord. Dogs, though they may not eat the children's meat (if they offer to do it, they are shut out of doors), yet, if children fully fed crumble their meat and make waste of it, as they will, and as the Jews now do, may not the Gentile dogs lick up those leavings? Thus she reasons it, and thus she makes use of anything she can lay hold of, whereby she may hope the better to prevail. Those that are hunger starved are glad to feed upon hedge fruit, and will make hard shift rather than perish. So, faithful hearers are not delicate, hut can "suffer an exhortation," Hebrews 13:22, hear a reproof, yea, suck honey, with the bee, out of bitter thyme.