“Why wasn’t this perfume sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?”
5. Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred denarii? A pound of ordinary ointment, Pliny tells us, cost not more than ten denarii; but the same Pliny says, that the highest price of the best ointment was three hundred and ten denarii.
In these verses we have, I. The kind visit our Lord Jesus paid to his friends at Bethany, Joh 12:1. He came up out of the country, six days before the passover, and took up at Bethany, a town which, according to the computation of our metropolis, lay so near Jerusalem as to be within the bills of mortality.
Commenting on John 12:1-11
Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence,.... Meaning Roman pence, one of which is, of the value of our money, seven pence halfpenny; so that three hundred pence amount to nine pounds seven shillings and six pence: and given to the poor?