It was [that] Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment,.... Not the woman in Luke 7:37, as some have thought, whose name is not mentioned, and which history is not related by John at all: but Mary in John 12:3, who is both mentioned by name, and along with Lazarus her brother, and with whom all the circumstances of the affair suit; and though the fact was not yet done, yet John writing many years after it was done, and when it was well known, proleptically, and in a parenthesis, takes notice of it here:
and wiped his feet with her hair; instead of a napkin, after she had anointed them with oil; Luke 7:37,
Whose brother Lazarus was sick; this is observed, to show how well they were all acquainted with Christ, and affected to him.