Mark 12 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

And he called unto him his disciples. — The act was significant. He sought to teach them to judge of acts by other than a quantitative standard. For him the widow’s mites and the ointment that might have been sold for 300 pence stood on the same level, so far as each was the expression of a generous and self-sacrificing love.

They did cast in of their abundance... she of her want. — The contrast between the two Greek words is somewhat stronger: They of their superfluity... she of her deficiency. We recognise the same standard of judgment, possibly even an allusive reference to our Lord’s language, in St. Paul’s praises of the churches of Macedonia, whose “deep poverty” had “abounded unto the riches of their liberality” (2 Corinthians 8:1-2).

Even all her living. — This was not necessarily involved in the act itself, but the woman may have become known to our Lord in one of His previous visits to Jerusalem, or we may see in the statement an instance of His divine insight into the lives and characters of men, like that shown in the case of the woman of Samaria (John 4:18).