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.
Ver. 3. Of spikenard, very costly] Herodotus reckons an alabaster box of ointment (μυρου αλαβαστρον) among the precious gifts that Cambyses sent for a present to the king of Ethiopia. Mary thinks nothing too good for him, whom her soul loved. She will honour him with the best of her substance; she knew there was nothing lost; but though it took from the heap, yet it increased the heap; as it is said of tithes and offerings, Malachi 3:10. This made David so free and frolic, that he would not servel God of that which cost him nothing; and that he made such plentiful preparation for the temple-work. It is both love and good husbandry to make our service to God costly: his retributions are bountiful. This ointment in the text was a costly confection, like that of the Church, "Spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon," &c., Song of Solomon 4:14. Now Galen writes that in his time cinnamon was very rare, and hard to be found, except in the storehouses of princes. And Pliny reports that a pound of cinnamon was worth a thousand denarii, that is, 150 crowns of our money. This good woman held, as Tertullian afterwards did, that Pietatis nomine sumptum facere, est lucrum facere, to spend upon pious uses was the way to greatest gain.