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Ver. 6-13. This piece of history (or one very like it) is recorded by the three other evangelists. Mark hath it with very little difference, Mar_14:3-9. Instead of for much, Mar_14:9, Mark hath a precise sum, three hundred pence, and adds, they murmured against her; and some other little differences he hath in words rather than in sense. In Luke, Luk_7:36-38, we read, One of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to meat. This seemeth not to be the same history, though some think it is. And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him weeping and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with ointment. It is plain this Pharisee’s name was Simon, by Luk_7:40. Luke further addeth a discourse between our Saviour and this Pharisee, Luk_7:39-50, which I shall in its order consider. John relates it, Joh_12:1,2, &c.: Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them which sat at the table with him. Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, which should betray him, Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein. Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always. Whether all the evangelists relate one and the same or divers stories is the question. Luke’s relation seemeth the most different; he saith nothing of this Simon being a leper, and relates this history immediately after things done in Galilee. All the other three agree this passage to have fallen out at Bethany, within two miles of Jerusalem. It is very probable that Matthew, and Mark, and John recite the same story. They agree it to have happened in Bethany, at a supper in Simon’s house; they agree in the kind of the ointment, and in our Saviour’s discourse upon the thing. The difference in the time, John mentioning six days before the passover, and Matthew two days, will be cleared by considering, that St. John sets down the precise time when our Saviour came to Bethany, which was six days before the passover; St. Matthew sets down the time when the feast was made, which was two days before the passover; so that our Saviour had been four days in Bethany before he was entertained in the house of Simon, and anointed by Mary for his burial. When Christ came out of Galilee toward Jerusalem, he came (as we heard before) to Bethany, Mar_11:1. There he was entertained at a supper by one Simon, who had formerly been a leper, and probably had been cured by Christ, who therefore in gratitude entertained him, and made him a supper; where (saith John) Martha served, Lazarus sat at meat, whom he had newly raised from the dead, Joh_11:1-57. There comes a woman, John saith her name was Mary, and takes a pound of the ointment of spikenard; Matthew and Mark say it was in an alabaster box. John saith she did anoint his feet, and wiped them with her hair. Matthew and Mark say nothing of her anointing his feet, but of his head only. Though therefore opinions both of ancient and modern divines be very various, some thinking that the evangelists speak but of one anointing, others, that they speak of two, others, that they speak of three; yet it seems most probable that they speak of two, one of which is mentioned by Luke a year before this, the other is mentioned by Matthew, Mark, and John. Whoso deliberately reads over the history in Luke, and compares it with the record of it in the three others, will see reasons enough to conclude that Luke speaketh of another person, and another time, and another place; for certainly Simon the Pharisee and Simon the leper were not the same: besides, we read in Luke that Simon carped at our Saviour for letting such a sinful woman come near him; here is nothing like it in this story. I shall therefore here consider the history as reported by our evangelist, taking in what Mark and John have to make it complete. Matthew and Mark say it was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper. John mentions not the house, but adds that Lazarus was at the same time at supper with our Lord and that Martha waited. It will not from hence follow that our Saviour was at the house of Lazarus, (as some think), for as the other evangelists express another house, so John gives no suspicion of any such thing, but by mentioning the presence of Lazarus and his two sisters there, which might be and one of them wait, though they were at the house of a friend.
There came unto him a woman, ( so say Matthew and Mark; John saith it was Mary, one of the sisters of Lazarus), she having an alabaster box of ointment very precious, poured it on his head as he sat at meat. John saith the ointment was of spikenard, very costly; and that she anointed his feet, and wiped them with her hair; and that the quantity of it was a pound, so as the odour of it did fill the room. She did certainly anoint both his head and his feet. It is certain that in those Eastern countries this was a usual fashion, to entertain their guests at banquets by anointing them with oil, to which the psalmist alludes, Psa_23:5. This woman seemeth to have exceeded the usual compliment of this nature, in the kind of oil she used, the quantity of it, and in her anointing his feet (which she possibly did instead of washing his feet, which was very usual with them); in these things she showed the greatness of her love to this guest.
When his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste? Mark adds, they murmured at the woman. They said, This ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor. Mark and John say, for three hundred pence. John saith it was Judas Iscariot that spake the words, and gives the reason for it, because he bare the bag, into which the price of the ointment (had it been sold) must have come; and he was a thief, he spake not this out of any regard to the poor, but to himself: it is likely other of the disciples might also think that it was too great a waste upon such a compliment. Our Lord understanding of it, vindicates the woman.
1. He tells them that she had done a good work. Actions not forbidden by the Divine law, nor commanded in it, take up their goodness or badness from their principles and ends; what she had done was done out of a principle of love to Christ, and for his honour and glory, so it was a good work.
2. He tells them that they had the poor with them always, but they should not have him always. A work may be good done at an extraordinary time, and upon an extraordinary occasion, which is not so if brought into ordinary practice. Christ here declares that he had no design to discourage the relief of the poor, but they would have daily occasions to do them good, but he was not long to be with them.
3. He tells them that she had poured this ointment upon him against his burial. That is, if this cost had been spent upon my dead body you would not have blamed her; for those kind of perfumes, both moist and dry, were much used in their embalming dead bodies. I am about to die, I have often told you so; you believe it not; she believeth it, and hath, out of her love to me, but bestowed such a cost upon my dying body, as you would not have blamed had it been bestowed upon my dead body: so she showed her faith in Christ’s words as well as his person.
Or, if this woman did not do it with any such intention, yet (saith our Saviour) she hath done the thing; I shall suddenly die, and she hath but anointed me aforehand, and is certainly as much excusable as those that spend more about bodies already dead. Finally, he tells them, that wheresoever this gospel should be preached, what she had done should be told to her honour and praise, for a memorial of her. Christ, seeing that her action proceeded from a hearty and burning love to him, accepteth her act as an extraordinary act of kindness to him, and proportions her a reward. Without love, if a man give all his goods to the poor, it signifieth nothing; but if there be love in the heart, it makes the gift acceptable. Love seldom underdoes in an act of kindness, and it cannot overdo where Christ is the true object of it. Men, who know not our hearts, may be ready to blame us for actions which God will highly commend and reward.
The evangelist having thus far digressed from his discourse, (probably to give us an account of the reason of Judas’s disgust to our Saviour), he now returneth to a discourse about what was done at the council he had told us of, Mat_26:3-5. The fear of an uproar amongst the people seemed to be that alone which made them shy of apprehending him on the feast day.