Mark 16:1 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Had bought sweet spices— Mr. West observes, that St. Mark, having written his gospel for the use of the Gentiles, who were strangers to the Jewish customs and religion, (as may be inferred from several little explanatory notes dropped up and down in his gospel,) in order to give these strangers a perfect intelligence of the fact related in this chapter, it was necessary for him to begin his account with that circumstance of the women's having bought spices to anoint the body of Jesus; that they might understand what business carried them so early to the sepulchre, and see by the preparations made by those women for the embalming of the body of Jesus, and the little credit given by the apostles to the reports of those who had seen our Lord on the day of his resurrection, that his rising from the dead was an event, not in the least expected by any of them, and not believed by the apostles, even after such evidence as Jesus upbraided them for not assenting to: from all which it was natural for them to conclude, that this fundamental article of their faith was neither received nor preached, but upon the fullest conviction of its truth. See Observations on the Resurrection, p. 33 and the notes on Matthew 28.