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The anointing at Bethany:
v. 3. And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper as He sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on His head.
v. 4. And there were some that had indignation within themselves and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made?
v. 5. For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence and have been given to the poor. And they murmured against her.
Mark here inserts a story of the Saturday before, when Jesus first came to Bethany from Jericho, unless we want to assume that two anointings took place. This Simon the leper seems to have been a relative of Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead. He had been cured of his terrible disease by the Lord and was duly thankful for the gift thus received, in his own way. Jesus had accepted an invitation to dinner with him and was reclining among the guests, when the incidents here narrated took place. A woman came into the room bearing an alabaster vase with genuine and very precious ointment, an Indian perfume made from the stems of a plant growing in the southern Himalayas, known as nard, or spikenard. The woman's actions drew the attention of the entire table company to her. Going over to Jesus, she broke off the narrow neck of the vase, in order that the perfumed ointment might. flow out all the more easily and then poured it out upon His head. It was an act of simple, unconscious devotion, of tender love. But it was not viewed with favor by all the table-round. There were certain ones present, and among them not a few of the disciples, with Judas Iscariot leading, that began to feel indignation rising in themselves: Why has this waste of the ointment been made? And not satisfied with mere grumbling, Judas finds the courage to give some reason for his objection: This myrrh might have been sold for more than three hundred denarii (fifty dollars) and the money given to the poor. In this way he snarled directly at the woman, and the others seconded him. It was a passionate outburst altogether out of proportion to the guilt of the woman, even if she had been tactless or extravagant. But the thought of Judas grew out of a heart that had long since ceased to be single in Christ's service. His heart belonged to the devil of avarice; and the poor interested him not at all.