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Joh_12:7-8. According to the Recepta, Jesus says: “She has fulfilled a higher purpose with the spikenard ointment ( αὐτό ); in order to embalm me with it to-day (as though I were already dead), has she (not given it out for the poor, but) reserved it.” Comp. on Mat_26:12. According to the correct reading, however (see the critical notes): “Let her alone, that she may preserve it (this ointment, of which she has just used a portion for the anointing of my feet, not give it away for the poor, but) for the day of my embalmment” (for behoof of that). Nonnus aptly remarks: ὄφρα φυλάξῃ σώματος ἡμετέρου κειμήλιον , εἰσόκεν ἔλθῃ ἡμετέρων κτερέων ἐπιτύμβιος ὥρη . Comp. also Baeumlein. According to this view, the ἡμέρα τοῦ ἐνταφ . is the actual, impending day of embalmment, in opposition to which, according to the Recepta, the present day of the anointing of the feet would be represented proleptically as that of the anointing of the corpse. The thought of the Recepta is that of the Synoptics; the Johannean carries with it the supposition of originality, and, comparing the thoughtful significance of the two, the Johannean is more in harmony with the circumstance that Mary anointed the feet merely, and by no means resembles a faulty correction (Hengstenberg, Godet). The circumstance that, afterwards, the corpse of Jesus was not actually anointed (Mar_16:1), can, in view of an utterance so rich and deep in feeling, afford no ground for deserting the simple meaning of the words.
τηρεῖν is to be explained, agreeably to the context (comp. Joh_2:10), as an antithesis to ἐπράθη , Joh_12:5, but not by the quite arbitrary assumption that the ointment had remained over from the burial of Lazarus (Kuinoel and several others); but to understand τηρήσῃ of the past; that she may have preserved it (B. Crusius, Ebrard) is grammatically wrong.[106] According to Ewald, ΤΗΡΕῖΝ is to be understood, as elsewhere, of festal usages (Joh_9:16): “Let her so observe this on the day of my burial,” so that Jesus would have that day already regarded as equivalent to the day of His burial, when such a loving custom was suitable. But as regards τηρεῖν , see what precedes; instead of the indefinite ΑὐΤΌ , it, however, τοῦτο was at least to have been expected.
Joh_12:8. Reason of the statement introduced with ἽΝΑ , Κ . Τ . Λ .
ΜΕΘʼ ἙΑΥΤῶΝ ] in your own neighbourhood, so that you have sufficiently immediate opportunity to give alms to such. For the rest, see on Mat_26:11.
[106] The modification of this rendering in Luthardt: “Let her rest as regards the fact that she has kept the ointment for me with the design (even though unconscious) of preserving it for the representation, beforehand, of the day of my embalmment,” is a grammatical impossibility. Similarly, however, Bengel.