(10) Why trouble ye the woman?--The Greek is more emphatic, "Why are ye giving trouble?" St. Mark uses a word to describe their conduct which explains the verse. "They murmured against her," or better, They were bitterly reproaching her. One after another of the murmurers uttered his bitter remonstrances.

She hath wrought a good work upon me.--The Greek adjective implies something more than "good"--a noble, an honourable work. The Lord Jesus, in His sympathy with all human affections, recognises the love that is lavish in its personal devotion as noble and excellent in itself. After His departure, as the teaching of Matthew 25:40 reminds us, the poor are His chosen representatives, and our offerings to Him are best made through them. How far the words sanction, as they are often urged as sanctioning, a lavish expenditure on the aesthetic element of worship, church architecture, ornamentation, and the like, is a question to which it may be well to find an answer. And the leading lines of thought are, (1) that if the motive be love, and not ostentation, He will recognise it, even if it is misdirected; (2) that so far as ostentation, or the wish to gratify our own taste and sense of beauty, enters into it, it is vitiated from the beginning; (3) that the wants of the poor have a prior claim before that gratification. On the other hand, we must remember (1) that the poor have spiritual wants as well as physical; (2) that all well-directed church-building and decoration minister to those wants, and, even in its accessories of form and colour, give to the poor a joy which is in itself an element of culture, and may minister to their religious life by making worship a delight. It is a work of charity thus to lighten up lives that are otherwise dull and dreary, and the true law to guide our conscience in such matters is to place our noblest churches in the districts where the people are the poorest.

Verse 10. - Understood it. Either their murmurs reached Christ's ears, or he divined their thoughts, and proceeded to defend Mary's action and to give a new lesson. Why trouble ye the woman? The disciples, observed Bengel, were really acting offensively to Jesus in thus censuring Mary; but he passes over this, and blames them only in respect of their conduct towards her. Doubtless, their remarks had reached Mary's ears, and annoyed and embarrassed her. For she hath wrought a good work upon (εἰς) me. A work that proved her zeal, reverence, and faith. Mary had always been devout, contemplative, loving. She had learned much at the grave of Lazarus; she was full of gratitude at the wonderful restoration of her brother's life; she had often heard Christ speak of his decease, and knew that it was close at ham], realizing that which the chosen apostles were still slow to believe; so she was minded to make this costly offering. And Christ saw her motive, and graciously accepted it.

26:6-13 The pouring ointment upon the head of Christ was a token of the highest respect. Where there is true love in the heart to Jesus Christ, nothing will be thought too good to bestow upon him. The more Christ's servants and their services are cavilled at, the more he manifests his acceptance. This act of faith and love was so remarkable, that it would be reported, as a memorial of Mary's faith and love, to all future ages, and in all places where the gospel should be preached. This prophecy is fulfilled.When Jesus understood it,.... The indignation of his disciples at this action of the woman's; which he might know, as man, partly by their looks, and partly by their words; though without these, as God, he knew the secret indignation, and private resentment of their minds:

he said unto them, why trouble ye the woman? by blaming her, and censuring the action she had done; as it must, no doubt, greatly trouble her to meet with such treatment from the disciples of Christ: had any of the Pharisees blamed her conduct, it would have given her no pain or uneasiness; but that Christ's own disciples should show indignation at an action done by her from a sincere love to Christ, and to do honour to him, must cut her to the heart: and so it is when either ministers of the Gospel, or private believers, are blamed for their honest zeal in the cause of Christ, by any that profess to love him; this grieves them more than all the enemies of religion say or do unto them:

for she hath wrought a good work upon me; upon his body, by pouring the ointment on it: the Persic version reads it, "according to my mind": it was done, in the faith of him, as the Messiah; it sprung from real and sincere love to him, and was designed for his honour and glory; and so had the essentials of a good work in it. This is the first part of our Lord's defence of the woman: he goes on in the next verse.