Matthew 15

Jesus first confronts the Pharisees over human tradition and shows that real uncleanness comes from the heart, not from unwashed hands or forbidden foods. Then He answers the persistent faith of a Gentile mother, heals many by the Sea of Galilee, and feeds four thousand with seven loaves. The chapter shows that God cares about the heart, and that His mercy reaches those who seem outside.

Matthew 15:1-2

Religious experts travel from Jerusalem to inspect Jesus. Their complaint is not about God’s written law but about handed-down custom: ritual hand-washing before meals. They treat the elders’ rules as though they carried the same weight as Scripture.

BSA: break (“transgress, disobey”): The Pharisees speak as if ignoring their custom were real law-breaking.

See also: Mark 7:1-5.

Matthew 15:3

Jesus does not defend Himself. He turns the question around. They accuse His disciples of breaking human tradition, but He says they themselves break God’s command, and they do it for the sake of their own tradition. Loyalty to man-made rules can crowd out obedience to God.

BSA: tradition (“teachings passed down, inherited practices”): Handed-down practices are not wrong in themselves, but they become a problem when they outrank God’s word.

Matthew 15:4

Jesus quotes the fifth commandment and the law that backed it up. Honoring parents was no small matter in Israel. Honor included practical care, especially for aged parents. Cursing them was treated as a very grave offense.

See also: Exodus 20:12; Exodus 21:17.

Matthew 15:5-6

Some had found a loophole. By declaring their goods dedicated to God, they could say their property was no longer available to help their parents. It looked pious but dodged a plain duty. Jesus says this cancels God’s word.

BSA: devoted (“dedicated, set apart”): Calling something set apart for God sounded holy, yet it was used to withhold help from parents.

Greek: ἠκυρώσατε (ēkyrōsate, G208) — “you made void, you deprived of authority.” The word is used of canceling a legal contract. Their tradition did not merely add to God’s command; it stripped it of force.

Matthew 15:7

Jesus calls them hypocrites and says Isaiah described them long before. The charge is not that they were unreligious. It is that their religion was a performance, with the outside not matching the inside.

Greek: ὑποκριταί (hypokritai, G5273) — “actors, stage players.” The word was used of actors who spoke from behind a mask. Jesus is saying they play a part before God and people.

Matthew 15:8-9

Isaiah’s words describe worship that is all mouth. Their lips say the right things, but their hearts are far from God. Worship like that is empty, especially when human rules are taught as if they were God’s own commands.

BSA: hearts (“the seat of thoughts, feelings, and emotions”): In Scripture the heart is the center of the whole person, so God looks there first.

See also: Isaiah 29:13.

Matthew 15:10-11

Jesus now speaks to the crowd, not just the leaders, and asks them to think. Food entering the mouth does not make a person unclean before God. What comes out of the mouth, meaning what is spoken from within, does. This was a startling shift in how people thought about purity.

BSA: defiled (“made unclean, profaned”): Jesus is speaking of moral and spiritual uncleanness, not just ritual uncleanness.

Greek: κοινοῖ (koinoi, G2840) — “makes common, defiles.” The word carries the sense of making something ordinary or unfit for God’s presence. Jesus says that this comes from within a person, not from outside.

See also: Mark 7:14-15.

Matthew 15:12

The disciples are worried. The Pharisees were important men, and they took offense. It is easy to measure a word by whether it upsets powerful people. Jesus does not retreat, because He speaks the truth even when it offends.

BSA: offended (“caused to stumble, troubled”): The Pharisees tripped over Jesus’ teaching, as people often do when truth exposes them.

Matthew 15:13

Jesus uses a garden picture. Whatever the Father did not plant, He will uproot. Teachings and traditions that do not come from God, however established they seem, will not last. Only what God Himself has planted will remain.

BSA: planted (“ephyteusen, to set in the earth to grow”): The verb pictures a gardener deliberately setting a plant in the ground, so what God has planted is intentional and lasting.

See also: Isaiah 60:21.

Matthew 15:14

Jesus tells His disciples to leave the Pharisees alone. They are blind guides, and blind guides lead their followers into a pit. This is a warning about whom we follow. It is not permission for pride toward others.

BSA: blind (“lacking spiritual insight”): The blindness Jesus means is not of the eyes but of the heart, which fails to see what God is saying.

See also: Luke 6:39.

Matthew 15:15-16

Peter asks for an explanation, and Jesus gently shows disappointment that they still do not see. These are His closest followers, and they are slow to grasp it. Even so, He does not turn them away. He patiently explains.

BSA: parable (“a story teaching a moral lesson”): Jesus’ short saying about the mouth was a picture meant to carry a deeper lesson about the heart.

Matthew 15:17

Jesus gives the plain, physical answer. Food goes into the stomach and is then eliminated. It does not touch the inner person. The body handles it, and it never reaches the heart where moral life begins.

See also: Mark 7:18-19.

Matthew 15:18-19

Words and actions come from the heart, and so does sin. Jesus lists what comes out: evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. The problem is deeper than behavior. Only God can change the heart.

BSA: heart (“the seat of thoughts, feelings, and emotions”): The heart is the control center from which a person’s thoughts, desires and choices flow.

Greek: διαλογισμοί (dialogismoi, G1261) — “reasonings, scheming thoughts.” The word is for inner reasoning that plots and plans. It shows that sin begins as thought long before it becomes action.

See also: Proverbs 4:23; Jeremiah 17:9.

Matthew 15:20

Jesus closes the argument. These inner evils are what make a person unclean before God. Eating with unwashed hands does not. Real cleansing must reach the heart, which is something no ritual can do.

See also: Psalm 51:10.

Matthew 15:21

Jesus leaves Galilee and goes north to the region of Tyre and Sidon, Gentile territory on the Mediterranean coast. After the clash with the Pharisees, He moves away from the crowds and the controversy and into a land where few Jews lived.

BSA: district (“region, coasts”): He went to the lands around the coastal cities, not necessarily into the cities themselves.

Matthew 15:22

A Gentile mother, called a Canaanite, comes crying out. She calls Jesus Lord and Son of David, which is a Jewish title for the Messiah. She has no claim on Him and does not argue one. She simply asks for mercy for her tormented daughter.

BSA: Son of David (“the Messiah, the descendant of King David”): She uses a Messiah title, which shows she has heard enough to believe He is the promised King.

Greek: ἔκραζεν (ekrazen, G2896) — “was crying out, kept shouting.” The verb is in a tense that suggests repeated, continuing cries, not a single call.

Matthew 15:23

Jesus is silent. The disciples, who are annoyed, ask Him to send her away. Her persistence is a bother to them. Yet His silence is not rejection. It begins a conversation that will draw out and show her faith.

BSA: urged (“besought, asked earnestly”): The disciples press Him strongly, though their request lacks the compassion Jesus Himself will show.

Matthew 15:24

Jesus states the focus of His earthly mission. He was sent first to the lost sheep of Israel, as God’s promises to that nation were being fulfilled. The blessing was always meant to reach the nations too, but through Israel first.

BSA: lost (“destroyed, wandering”): The sheep are both wandering and in danger, which is why a shepherd must go after them.

See also: Matthew 10:5-6; Romans 15:8.

Matthew 15:25

She does not give up. She comes closer, kneels in front of Him, and speaks the shortest prayer imaginable: Lord, help me. It is humble, direct and desperate. She asks for nothing clever, only for help.

BSA: knelt (“worshipped, bowed down”): Her kneeling is real homage, which shows she treats Jesus as more than a healer.

Greek: προσεκύνει (prosekynei, G4352) — “was bowing down, worshipping.” The word is used for bowing in reverence before a king or God. The tense suggests she kept bowing there.

Matthew 15:26

Jesus’ answer sounds hard. The children are Israel, the bread is His blessing, and the dogs stand for Gentiles. His word is not careless. He is testing her and drawing out what is in her heart. The word He uses is soft, as if for household pets.

Greek: κυναρίοις (kynariois, G2952) — “little dogs, house puppies.” The word is a diminutive for small household dogs, not for street scavengers. That softens the image and leaves her room to answer.

Matthew 15:27

She does not argue with the picture. She accepts it and turns it into her plea. Even household dogs get the crumbs that fall from the table. She asks for no special place, only for a small share of His great goodness.

BSA: dogs (“little dogs, puppies”): She keeps the small, household sense of the word and uses it humbly as part of her plea.

Matthew 15:28

Jesus now praises her openly. Her faith is great, and it has been shown by humility and persistence. He grants her request, and her daughter is healed from that very hour, even though the girl was not there. His word reaches across distance.

BSA: faith (“trust and confidence in God”): Her faith was not mere belief but a clinging trust that He would be good to her even when she had no claim.

See also: Matthew 8:10.

Matthew 15:29

Jesus returns to the Sea of Galilee and climbs a mountain, a hillside above the lake. There He sits down, as a teacher or a king would. Needy people will soon find Him there.

BSA: sat down (“took his seat, was seated”): Sitting suggests He is settled and ready to receive all who come.

Matthew 15:30-31

Crowds bring their suffering friends and family and lay them at His feet. He heals them all. The people marvel and give glory to the God of Israel. The healings recall Isaiah’s picture of the coming age, when the lame leap and the mute sing.

BSA: glorified (“praised, honored”): The crowd traces the healing back to God, not just to the healer.

See also: Isaiah 35:5-6.

Matthew 15:32

Jesus calls His disciples and tells them what is on His heart. The crowd has been with Him three days with nothing to eat, and He will not send them home hungry. His care covers the practical needs of the body as well as the soul.

BSA: compassion (“pity, sympathy”): His concern is felt, not merely stated, and it moves Him to act.

Greek: σπλαγχνίζομαι (splanchnizomai, G4697) — “I am moved in my inner being.” It comes from the word for the gut, the seat of deep feeling. Jesus feels their hunger deeply.

Matthew 15:33

The disciples ask a reasonable question, and it sounds as if they had forgotten the earlier feeding of the five thousand. They look at the empty place and the size of the crowd, and they see only what is lacking.

See also: Matthew 14:15-21.

Matthew 15:34

Jesus asks what they have. They offer seven loaves and a few small fish. It is almost nothing against such a crowd, yet He starts with what is in their hands. God often begins with what we have, however small.

BSA: loaves (“bread or food”): These are simple flat loaves, the common food of ordinary people.

Matthew 15:35-36

Jesus has the crowd sit down in order, then takes the bread and fish and gives thanks. He breaks them and gives them to the disciples, who give them to the people. He gives thanks before the need is met, and the disciples serve as His hands.

BSA: gave thanks (“expressing gratitude, praising God”): He blesses the Father for the little food before it is multiplied.

See also: Matthew 26:26.

Matthew 15:37-38

Everyone eats until satisfied, and seven basketfuls remain. Thousands of men are fed, plus the women and children. Nothing is lacking and something is left over. This shows the overflowing provision of Jesus.

BSA: satisfied (“filled to the full, completely content”): The meal was not just a taste. People were truly full.

Greek: σπυρίδας (spyridas, G4711) — “large woven baskets.” This is a different word from the baskets in the feeding of the five thousand. Jesus later refers to both, so the difference was remembered.

See also: Matthew 16:9-10.

Matthew 15:39

After sending the crowds home, Jesus gets into the boat and crosses the lake to the region of Magadan. The scene closes quietly. He moves on to the next place and the next people who need Him.

BSA: Magadan (“Magdala, a place in Palestine”): The name is often linked with Magdala, a town on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee.