Syrophoenician

occurs only in (Mark 7:26) The word denoted perhaps a mixed race, half Phoenicians and half Syrians; (or the Phoenicians in this region may have been called Syro-phoenicians because they belonged to the Roman province of Syria, and were thus distinguished from the Phoenicians who lived in Africa, or the Carthaginians.—ED.)

si'-ro-fe-nish'-an, sir-o- (Surophoinissa, Surophoinikissa; Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in Greek has variant Sura Phoinikissa; the King James Version Syrophenician): The woman from the borders of Tyre and Sidon whose daughter Jesus healed is described as "a Greek, a Syrophoenician by race" (Mr 7:26), and again as "a Canaanitish woman" (Mt 15:22). This seems to mean that she was of Canaanite descent, a native of the Phoenician seaboard, Greek in religion, and probably also in speech. The names Syria and Phoenicia are both applied to the same region in Ac 21:2,3. Syrophoenician may therefore denote simply an inhabitant of these parts. According to Strabo (xvii.3), this district was called Syrophoenicia to distinguish it from the North African Lybophoenicia.

W. Ewing