Aramaic Word Study: Gleaning

ARAMAIC WORD STUDY – GLEANING – PA’EL – פאל

Matthew 15:26-27: “But he said: It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs. And she said truth Lord, but the dogs eat the crumbs which fall from the master’s table.”

Does something about this story bother you. A poor Canaanite woman comes to Jesus begging Him to heal her daughter and Jesus calls her a dog and literally tells her to get lost. Actually, Jesus was only quoting other Jews when he called the woman a dog because that is what the Gentiles were called by Jews, kalavs. Oddly, Kalav not only means a dog in Aramaic and Hebrew but in Hebrew that first letter could be the preposition like or as and the word lav means your heart. A dog is also like your heart. Nonetheless in English and even in Greek it sounds insulting, but this exchange took place in Aramaic which tells a different story. “…but the dogs eat the crumbs which fall…” That word fall in Aramaic is pa’el which is equivalent to the Hebrew word pa’eh. Both words mean to glean and you can find in that Hebrew word in Leviticus 19:9-10 which speaks of the law of gleaning. You will find the Aramaic equivalent in the Mishnah which devotes a whole chapter entitle Pa’ah or gleaning and explains that a Jew harvesting a crop was to leave a portion on the outskirts of the filed for the poor and Gentiles dwelling among Jews to glean.

I believe Jesus allowed this woman express her knowledge of the Jewish laws to embarrass the Jews around him who may not have even been aware of this.

One other thing In Exodus 11:7 we learn that when the Exodus took place, the dogs did not bark. Dogs were used by the Egyptians to guard the Hebrews. That Talmud teaches that the Jewish leaders went to the dogs just before the Exodus and spoke to the dogs: “Now look you guys, when we escape, we want you to keep quiet and not bark.” The dogs responded “ok” and they were true to their word. In the Midrash Rabbah 31:9 we learn that any meat which was not slaughtered properly was to be given to the dogs to eat even before the family ate as a reward for not barking when the Hebrews made their escape. Even today many orthodox Jews will feed their dogs before they feed themselves.