Matthew 26:9

For this ointment might have been sold for much and given to the poor.

In order to complete his narrative, Matthew here relates a happening of the previous Saturday, John 12:1. When Christ came up to Bethany from Jericho, He took dinner with one Simon, otherwise unknown, who had formerly been a leper and had probably been healed by Jesus. According to one tradition, he was the father of Lazarus; according to others, the husband of Martha. While the dinner was in progress, and the guests, after the Oriental fashion, were reclining about the table, Mary, the sister of Lazarus and Martha, came into the room. In her hand she held an alabaster box of most costly ointment of spikenard, which she proceeded to pour out over the head of Jesus as He reclined at meat. Anointing with oil was the Old Testament method of denoting consecration to the Lord. It was used in the case of kings, priests, and prophets, Leviticus 8:12; 1 Samuel 10:1; 1 Samuel 16:13; 1 Kings 19:16. It was also a distinction bestowed upon the guests of honor, Luke 7:46. Mary was not at all saving in her ministrations. She broke off the head of the alabaster flask, just as she had purchased it, and recklessly, lavishly, applied the precious aromatic, so that the whole room was filled with its odor. All of the disciples were taken aback and annoyed, muttering, Why this waste? But one of them, Judas, the treasurer of the apostles, who was a thief, was loudest in his objections. The nard, he indignantly remarks, might have been sold for much, possibly for three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor. But his show of charity only served as a cloak for his covetousness. The money being in his care, it would be an easy matter to obtain some of it for his own uses.