Matthew 26:1-16
The Lord has come to the end of His teaching. Now the final events are about to be accomplished. While at Jerusalem the plotting of wicked men is being hatched (vv. 3-5), a very different scene is being unfolded at Bethany. Rejected and hated by the great ones of His people, the Lord Jesus finds among His humble followers the welcome, the love and the worship which was due to Him. Having no further place in the temple, He is received in the house of Simon the leper. Royal honours have been denied Him, but ointment of great price is poured on His head, figurative of the royal unction. This woman discerns and honours the Messiah of Israel. "While the king sitteth at his table, my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof" (Song of Solomon 1:12). The Lord is the only one to understand and appreciate her act. But what does that matter! From the moment that He finds pleasure in it, nobody has the right to trouble this woman. Again we pass on in v. 14 to a scene of darkness. The traitor Judas, who too had just smelled the odour of the ointment, commits his act of betrayal and receives his wages: thirty pieces of silver, the price of a slave. But the prophet Zechariah calls it, not without a trace of irony, a goodly price, because it is the sum at which the Son of God was to be valued (Zechariah 11:13).