15:26a–b

But Jesus replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”: Jesus responded to the women’s request by telling a parable. In this parable the “children” represent the Jews. The dogs represent the non-Jewish peoples of the world. The term bread refers to things that will benefit people. (In this context it refers specifically to the help that Jesus gave to people by healing them.) Jesus told the woman that he was in the world to give help to the Jews first. It was not proper for him to give these things to non-Jews before he gave them to Jews.

The meaning is clearer in the book of Mark. Mark includes the clause “First let the children have their fill” (Mark 7:27a). The dogs were fed later.

In some languages, it will be good to include a footnote to explain the meaning of the parable.

15:26a

But Jesus replied: Jesus responded to the woman’s request by telling a parable. In some languages, it may be necessary to make this explicit. For example:

He answered ⌊with a parable⌋

It is not right: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as right also means “good.” For example:

It is not good (New American Standard Bible)
-or-
It is not proper/fit
-or-
It is bad

to take the children’s bread: This phrase refers to “taking” or “picking up” bread that is set aside for children. Jesus says it is bad to not give the bread to children to eat, and give it to dogs instead. This phrase does not refer to “grabbing bread away from” children after it has already been given to them.

Here are some other ways to translate this phrase:

to take the bread for children
-or-
to pick up the food of children

See the General Comment after 15:26b for another way to translate the verb take.

bread: Bread was the main food of the people who lived in that area at the time of Jesus. Here the word bread is used in a figurative sense to refer to all food. If the people in your area do not commonly eat bread, it may be more natural to translate the word bread as “food.” For example:

food (God’s Word)

15:26b

and toss it to the dogs: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as toss refers to the way that people gave food to dogs. In some languages, it is more natural to use another verb. For example:

and give it to the dogs (New Century Version)
-or-
and feed it to dogs (Contemporary English Version)

Some languages have one word for “wild dogs” and another word for “house dogs.” If your language is like that, you should use the word that means “house dogs.”

General Comment on 15:26a–b.

The Greek uses two verbs to describe what happens to the bread. It uses “take” in 15:26a and “toss” in 15:26b. In some languages, it may be more natural to translate the two verbs as one verb. For example:

to give children’s bread to dogs

-or-

to throw/toss children’s food to dogs

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