“And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head.”
While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head — the anointing at Bethany is the passion narrative's first scene, placed before the betrayal and establishing the contrast between two disciples: the unnamed woman who gives everything for Jesus and Judas who sells Jesus for thirty silver coins. The pure nard (pistikos nardos) was imported from the Himalayas and worth a year's wages. Breaking the jar meant complete, irreversible use — nothing held back.
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