There came unto him a woman. — We learn from St. John (John 12:3) that this was Mary the sister of Lazarus. It is hardly conceivable (unless we conjecture that she came in veiled, and that St. John alone knew her) that the writers of the first two Gospels, or those from whom they derived their knowledge, could have been ignorant who she was, and we can only see in their suppression of the name an example of the singular reticence which sealed their lips as to every member of the family at Bethany. A prevalent tradition or conjecture in the Western Church has identified the sister of Lazarus with the woman that was a sinner, of Luke 7, and, on this assumption what we now read was a repetition of an offering of love that had been made before. Of this, however, there is not the shadow of proof (see Notes on Luke 7:37-38). It may well have been, on the other hand, that the household of Bethany had heard of that act, and that this suggested the way in which love and gratitude now manifested themselves.
An alabaster box of very precious ointment. — The box was probably a vase of the material described as alabaster (according to one etymology, however, that word described originally the shape of the vase, as made without handles, and was subsequently extended to the material of which such vases were commonly made), with the lid cemented down, so as not to admit of extraction like a cork or stopper. St. John (John 12:3) describes the quantity as a pound (litra=about twelve ounces); and both St. John and St. Mark add that it was “of spikenard.” The word so rendered, however (pistikè), is found only in those two passages (Mark 14:3; John 12:3), and it is open to question whether it bears this meaning, or means “pure, genuine, unadulterated.” The “nard” so described is identified by botanists with the Nardostachys jatamansi, the sumbul of India, but was probably applied by Greeks and Romans to other perfumes. The value of the ointment is roughly estimated afterwards at three hundred denarii (John 12:5). Such preparations, like genuine âtar of roses in the modern East, consisting, as they did mainly, in the essential oils of carefully cultivated flowers, often fetched an almost fabulous price. The fact that Mary had such an unguent by her indicates that the household of Bethany belonged to the comparatively wealthy class, and so agrees with the general impression left by the record of John 11. It is a probable conjecture that a like costly unguent had been used in embalming the body of the brother who had so recently been raised from the dead, and that this gave a special point to our Lord’s comment on the act. St. Mark adds that she broke or crushed the vessel in order to pour out the ointment; St. John, that she anointed His feet, and wiped them with her hair.