Matthew Chapter 15 verse 24 Holy Bible

ASV Matthew 15:24

But he answered and said, I was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
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BBE Matthew 15:24

But he made answer and said, I was sent only to the wandering sheep of the house of Israel.
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DARBY Matthew 15:24

But he answering said, I have not been sent save to the lost sheep of Israel's house.
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KJV Matthew 15:24

But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
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WBT Matthew 15:24


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WEB Matthew 15:24

But he answered, "I wasn't sent to anyone but the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
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YLT Matthew 15:24

and he answering said, `I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.'
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Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 24. - I am (was) not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Doubtless the woman had listened to the apostles' intercession, and thought her cause won; but the repulse is only repeated; this Gentile is beyond the sphere of his mission; he cannot help her without departing from the rule which he had set himself. Jesus says nothing here about the rejection of the Jews and the future ingathering of the Gentiles; he states merely that his personal mission while he was on earth was confined to the Hebrew nation. He was, as St. Paul calls him (Romans 15:8), "a Minister of the circumcision." Later, he would send others to evangelize those who were now aliens from the chosen commonwealth; at present he has come unto his own possessions. Lost sheep. There is a tenderness in this expression natural from the mouth of the good Shepherd. He had used it when he sent forth the twelve on their apostolical journey (Matthew 10:6); the metaphor is found in the Old Testament (see Jeremiah 50:6, etc.) It is appropriate here, where he is emphasizing his attitude towards the chosen people, and teaching the Canaanitish woman the relative position of Jew and Gentile.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(24) I am not sent (better, I was not sent) but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.--This, then, was what had restrained Him. Those wandering sheep, without a shepherd, were the appointed objects of His care. Were He to go beyond that limit in a single case, it might be followed by a thousand, and then, becoming, as it were, before the time, the Apostle of the Gentiles, He would cease to draw to Himself the hearts of Israel as their Redeemer. We call to mind the case of the centurion's servant (Matthew 8:10), and wonder that that was not decisive as a precedent in the supplicant's favour. The two cases stood, however, on a very different footing. The centurion who had built a synagogue was practically, if not formally, a proselyte of the gate. As the elders of the synagogue pleaded for him as worthy, the work of healing wrought for him would not alienate them or their followers. The woman belonged, on the contrary, to the most scorned and hated of all heathen races, to the Canaan on which the primeval curse was held to rest (Genesis 9:25), and had as yet done nothing to show that she was in any sense a convert to the faith of Israel.