What Does Mark 7:28 Mean?
And she answered and said to him, Yes, Lord. Yet the little dogs beneath the table eat from the children's crumbs.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs.THE KEY
The Greek καί can mean “also” or “even” here: her reply places the little dogs within the household’s provision, beneath the same table that feeds the children.
THE MEANING
The verse meets the reader at a boundary that still leaves something within reach. A small portion remains part of the same provision, even when the place and share are unequal.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that receiving less means having no place at the table.
THE ROOT
ψιχίων
psichiōn
GROWS FROM
ψιχ-
psich-
Crumb or small morsel; ψιχίων is the genitive plural of ψιχίον, a little crumb.
“crumbs” in this verse is psichiōn. The Greek word keeps a crumb within the family of the bread it comes from: it is a small piece of the meal itself. Her answer turns on portion and position beneath the table, not on a separate source of food.
ALSO GROWS
psíx: Crumb, morsel
ψίξ
This is the base word behind the diminutive form used for crumbs here.
psíkha: Crumb or soft interior of bread
ψῖχα
It keeps the small piece connected to the bread itself, sharpening the image of provision reaching beneath the table.
κυνάρια
kynaria
GROWS FROM
κυν-
kyn-
Dog; κυνάρια is the diminutive form of the word for dog.
The Greek uses a form often rendered little dogs. That diminutive gives the scene a household scale: the dogs are beneath the table, close enough for its small portions to reach them.
ALSO GROWS
kyōn: Dog
κύων
This is the base noun behind the diminutive used in the verse.
kynarion: Little dog
κυνάριον
This diminutive form makes the dogs’ place beneath the table part of the image.
THE PATTERN
Provision reaches beyond its first recipients, and what seems small or leftover remains within its reach.
And Boaz said to her, At mealtime draw near here, and eat of the bread, and immerse your morsel in the vinegar. And she sat facing the reapers, and he held out to her parched grain, and she ate and was full, and left some over.You open your hand and fill every living thing with delight.When they were filled, he said to his disciples, Gather up the broken pieces that remain, so that nothing perishes.THE THREAD
And she said, Yes, Lord, yet the little dogs eat from the crumbs that fall from the table of their masters.Matthew uses the same Greek word for crumbs, ψιχίων (psichiōn), and the same word for little dogs, κυνάρια (kynaria). Its mention of crumbs falling from the table makes explicit how the small portion reaches those beneath it.
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