Mark 7:24

And from thence he arose, and went away into the borders of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered into a house, and would have no man know it; and he could not be hid.

As Dorris noted, "This is the only instance in the Lord's ministry when he went beyond the bounds of Palestine."[11] Tyre and Sidon were the principal cities of ancient Phoenicia and were among the most distinguished of antiquity.

Tyre was founded in the 15th century B.C. on an island about half a mile from the coast and was for generations the leading seaport of the Mediterranean sea. The infamous Jezebel was the daughter of Ethbaal, King of Tyre; and God's prophets prophesied the doom of this wicked city, their predictions coming true when Alexander the Great, forced to pause in his mad conquest of the world for a whole seven months by the stubborn resistance of Tyre, at last overcame it in 322 B.C., slaughtering 10,000 of its citizens and selling another 30,000 into slavery. Paul spent a week there while his ship unloaded cargo on his journey from Ephesus to Jerusalem. It still exists as modern Lebanon.

Sidon, even older than Tyre, and its acknowledged mother, did not possess a fortress position like Tyre and quickly submitted to Alexander the Great. It was a rich and prosperous city on the seacoast, extolled in the poems of Homer, captured and annexed a dozen times by various world powers throughout history, and displaying the same gross wickedness that characterized her sister-city Tyre and linked both their names proverbially as symbols of carnality and corruption. Yet Jesus Christ said of these twin cities that it would be more tolerable for them in the day of judgment than for the cities of Israel who rejected their Messiah (Matthew 11:20-22). Paul once refreshed himself here. The city still lives under the name of Saida.

Despite the wickedness of the Phoenicians, their achievements were considerable. They are said to have invented the alphabet, developed the art of navigation to a point which enabled them to circumnavigate Africa in the 7th century B.C., and to have been skilled manufacturers of metal objects, textile fabrics, and a purple dye made from seashells. Hiram, King of Tyre, aided Solomon in building the temple.

And he entered into a house ... This was the home of some unnamed friend of our Lord.

And he could not be hid ... True both in context and intrinsically, this statement concerning Jesus Christ sheds perpetual light upon the Christ of glory. Not the sins, or indifference, or the hatred of men have been able to hide the light that lighteth every man.