Preparation for interment
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ἐνταφιασμός names the act of preparing a body for burial, burial preparation. " The statement reframes an act that, on its surface, looked like lavish present devotion into an act with a future-facing purpose Mary herself may not have fully grasped.
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Full entry for ἐνταφιασμός (G1780) · Open the biblical lexicon
ἐνταφιασμός names the act of preparing a body for burial, burial preparation. " The statement reframes an act that, on its surface, looked like lavish present devotion into an act with a future-facing purpose Mary herself may not have fully grasped.
The BSB source-word alignment has 2 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include burial (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Mark 14:8. Its strongest book concentrations include John (1), Mark (1).
ἐνταφιασμός names the act of preparing a body for burial, burial preparation. Jesus uses it in John 12:7 to reinterpret Mary's costly anointing: "She has kept this perfume in preparation for the day of My burial." The statement reframes an act that, on its surface, looked like lavish present devotion into an act with a future-facing purpose Mary herself may not have fully grasped.
John's Gospel has already begun signaling Jesus' approaching death (John 11:53, the plot to kill him; John 12:1, 'six days before the Passover'), and this word ties Mary's perfume directly into that gathering shadow. The word does not claim Mary consciously intended a burial rite; Jesus assigns the meaning retroactively, in the same way he elsewhere interprets ordinary acts and objects within his own unfolding purpose.
Teachers should preserve that distinction: Mary's devotion is genuine and immediate, and Jesus' interpretation of it as burial preparation is his own authoritative reading of the act's significance.
John 12:7 shows Jesus doing something he does throughout this Gospel: taking an ordinary, immediate human act and disclosing the larger purpose it serves within his own approaching death. Mary's anointing was already an act of extravagant love; Jesus' words do not diminish that, they deepen it, tying her devotion to the burial he knows is close.
“Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “She has kept this perfume in preparation for the day of My burial.
John 12:7 records Jesus' own interpretation of Mary's anointing: 'She has kept this perfume in preparation for the day of My burial.'
“Why wasn’t this perfume sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?”
The statement answers Judas' objection in John 12:4-6 that the perfume should have been sold for the poor, redirecting the conversation from cost to Jesus' approaching death.
She has done what she could to anoint My body in advance of My burial.
Mark 14:8 records a parallel statement, 'She has done what she could; she has anointed My body beforehand for burial,' confirming the burial-preparation interpretation across Gospel traditions.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. Anointing a body with spices and perfumes as ritual preparation for burial, not ordinary washing.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
2 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
embalming, preparation of a body for burial
Read verseembalming, preparation of a body for burial
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 2 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
ἐνταφιασμός is built from this root:
John 12:7 shows Jesus doing something he does throughout this Gospel: taking an ordinary, immediate human act and disclosing the larger purpose it serves within his own approaching death. Mary's anointing was already an act of extravagant love; Jesus' words do not diminish that, they deepen it, tying her devotion to the burial he knows is close. The scene sits just before Jesus enters Jerusalem and just after Lazarus' raising has hardened the authorities' resolve to kill him.
Preachers can use this word to show that acts of love offered to Jesus are never merely private gestures in John's Gospel; they are caught up, often without the giver's full awareness, into the larger story of his death and glory. This word opens a teaching doorway on how Jesus reads ordinary devotion within his larger purpose: Mary's perfume becomes burial preparation not because she planned it that way, but because Jesus discloses its meaning within his approaching death.
It gives teachers a way to talk about acts of love that carry more significance than the giver may realize. It corrects readings that treat Mary's anointing as a spontaneous act with no larger significance, missing Jesus' own explicit reinterpretation of it as burial preparation. Frame ἐνταφιασμός as Jesus' own authoritative interpretation of Mary's act, not as evidence that Mary consciously performed a burial rite.
John.12.7
Frame ἐνταφιασμός as Jesus' own authoritative interpretation of Mary's act, not as evidence that Mary consciously performed a burial rite. Linguistically, ἐνταφιασμός should be allowed to name preparation for burial without carrying claims the cited passages do not make.
John's Gospel repeatedly shows Jesus interpreting ordinary human acts within the larger purpose of his approaching death and glorification, and his reading of Mary's anointing as burial preparation in John 12:7 fits that same pattern, just before the Passion narrative begins in earnest.
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