Matthew 15:26

“But he answered, and said, etc.] To the woman, as the Persic version reads it, and the sense requires: it is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs; which he said, to try her faith the more, and make it the more illustrious; and that not so much from his own sense of things, as in the language of the Jewish people, and which she might not be a stranger to. By “the children”, are meant the Jews, to whom the adoption belonged; who, as a nation and people, were the children of God in a large sense; being distinguished by many blessings and favours, which others had not, and being under the more peculiar care and notice of God; not that all of them were the children of God…”

“This narrative is also found in Mark 7:24-30. The coasts of Tyre and Sidon - These cities were on the seacoast or shore of the Mediterranean. See the notes at Matthew 11:21. Jesus went there for the purpose of concealment Mark 7:24, perhaps still to avoid Herod. Matthew 15:22 A woman of Canaan - This woman is called, also, a Greek, a Syro-Phoenician by birth, Mark 7:26 In ancient times, the whole land, including Tyre and Sidon, was in the possession of the Canaanites, and called Canaan. The Phoenicians were descended from the Canaanites. The country, including Tyre and Sidon, was called Phoenicia, or Syro-Phoenicia. That country was taken by the Greeks under Alexander the Great, and those…”

“15:26 Jews often referred to pagans as dogs, which are ceremonially unclean (Lev 11:27). Jesus was speaking to the woman of her spiritual condition as a Gentile—as unclean and separated from God (cp. Matt 7:6).”

“It is not: Mat 7:6; Mar 7:27, Mar 7:28; Act 22:21, Act 22:22; Rom 9:4; Gal 2:15; Eph 2:12; Phi 3:2; Rev 22:15 dogs: Τοις κυναριοις \[Strong's G2952\], "to the little dogs," lap dogs, etc., the diminutive of κυων \[Strong's G2965\], a dog. The Jews, while they boasted of being the children of God, gave the name of dogs to the heathen, for their idolatry, etc. Matthew 15:27”