What Does John 12:3 Mean?
Then Mary took a pound of ointment of genuine nard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and dried his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the scent of the ointment.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
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.THE KEY
The word translated “costly” also carries the sense of honor: Mary’s valued gift becomes honor made tangible, and its fragrance fills the house.
THE MEANING
Mary pours precious perfume on Jesus’ feet and wipes them with her hair; the whole house fills with its scent. The verse shows love taking bodily form, its value passing from one person into the shared space.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what is most valuable must be kept intact: here, the perfume’s worth is expressed as it is poured out.
THE ROOT
πολυτίμου
polytimou
GROWS FROM
τιμή
timē
Value, worth, price, and honor.
“very costly” in this verse is polytimou. The English phrase foregrounds the perfume’s price. Its Greek word also carries the sense of what is highly valued, while its root τιμή (timē, value or honor) lets price and honor resonate together: the gift’s material worth becomes an act of honor.
ALSO GROWS
timē: honor, value
τιμή
This root holds worth and honor together, so Mary’s costly gift is also an embodied honoring of Jesus.
timios: precious, held in honor
τίμιος
This related word shows how being valued can carry both preciousness and honor, as the perfume does in the scene.
THE PATTERN
What is poured out becomes a presence that reaches beyond the giver.
Because of the scent of your good oils, your name is oil poured forth, therefore the maidens love you.Like the good oil upon the head, that runs down upon the beard, Aaron's beard, that runs down to the collar of his garments.For we are a good scent of the Anointed One to God, among those being delivered and among those who are perishing.THE THREAD
Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel he was girded with.The verb ἐκμάσσω (ekmassō, to wipe or dry off) connects Mary wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair to Jesus wiping the disciples’ feet with a towel. The same act of intimate care moves from her toward him, then from him toward them.
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