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LUKE 7:38 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
Luke 7:37Luke 7:39
“And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.”
As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them — the extravagant action is simultaneously overwhelming and tender: weeping, wetting his feet with tears, wiping with hair, kissing, pouring perfume. The hair used to wipe the feet communicates the reversal of the normal social hierarchy — hair is a woman's glory (1 Corinthians 11:15); she uses it for the most humbling possible service.

Church Fathers on Luke 7:38

Having said just before, And the people that heard him justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John the same Evangelist builds up in deed what he had proposed in word, namely, wisdom justified by the righteous and the penitent, saying, And one of the Pharisees desired him, &c.

Bede · 8th century

This account is full of precious instruction. For there are very many who justify themselves, being puffed up with the dreamings of an idle fancy, who before the time of Judgment comes, separate themselves as lambs from the herds, not willing even to join in eating with the many, and hardly with those who go not to extremes, but keep the middle path in life. St. Luke, the physician of souls rather than of bodies, represents therefore our Lord and Savior most mercifully…

Gregory of Nyssa · 4th century

A woman of corrupt life, but testifying her faithful affection, comes to Christ, as having power to release her from every fault, and to grant her pardon for the crimes she had committed. For it follows, And behold a woman in the city which was a sinner brought an alabaster box of ointment.

Cyril of Alexandria · 5th century
Read all 35 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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Luke 7:38 — Community Reflections | HolyStudy