Extremely valuable
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πολύτιμος describes what carries great price or worth: costly, of great value. " John does not give the ointment's value in the abstract; Judas supplies the number two verses later, estimating it at three hundred denarii, roughly a year's wages for a laborer.
Reader summary
Full entry for πολύτιμος (G4186) · Open the biblical lexicon
πολύτιμος describes what carries great price or worth: costly, of great value. " John does not give the ointment's value in the abstract; Judas supplies the number two verses later, estimating it at three hundred denarii, roughly a year's wages for a laborer.
The BSB source-word alignment has 3 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include more precious (1), of expensive (1), very precious (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 13:46. Its strongest book concentrations include 1 Peter (1), John (1), Matthew (1).
πολύτιμος describes what carries great price or worth: costly, of great value. John 12:3 uses it for the perfume Mary pours over Jesus' feet, "about a pint of expensive perfume, made of pure nard." John does not give the ointment's value in the abstract; Judas supplies the number two verses later, estimating it at three hundred denarii, roughly a year's wages for a laborer.
The word therefore anchors a concrete, costly gift rather than a vague gesture of devotion. Mary's act pours out real, calculable wealth on Jesus' feet at a moment John's narrative places deliberately close to his approaching death: Jesus himself interprets the anointing as preparation for his burial (John 12:7). Teachers should let the costliness stand as costliness, an extravagant, calculated sacrifice, rather than softening it into a vague symbol of feeling.
John 12:3 is easy to read quickly, but the word πολύτιμος asks readers to slow down and register the actual expense Mary offers. This is not a token gesture; it is close to a year's income, poured out in a single, unrepeatable act. Scripture repeatedly commends costly, sacrificial worship over token offerings (2 Sam 24:24, 'I will not offer... that which costs me nothing'), and Mary's anointing in John 12:3 stands in that same trajectory of worship measured by real cost, offered just before Jesus' own costly death.
Then Mary took about a pint of expensive perfume, made of pure nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
John 12:3 describes Mary's perfume as 'about a pint of expensive perfume, made of pure nard,' poured out on Jesus' feet six days before Passover.
“Why wasn’t this perfume sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?”
Judas immediately objects that the perfume could have been sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor, giving the narrative a concrete monetary value for the gift's costliness.
And truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached in all the world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.”
Mark 14:3-9 and Matthew 26:6-13 record a closely related anointing tradition and have Jesus declare that the woman's act will be told 'wherever the gospel is preached,' underscoring the Gospels' shared regard for the gift's costly devotion.
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. Value expressed through costliness or rarity; worth measured by monetary or material expense.
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.
of great value
Read verseof great value
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 3 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.
πολύτιμος is built from these roots:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
John 12:3 is easy to read quickly, but the word πολύτιμος asks readers to slow down and register the actual expense Mary offers. This is not a token gesture; it is close to a year's income, poured out in a single, unrepeatable act. John places the scene six days before Passover, framing Mary's extravagant devotion against Judas' calculating objection and, ultimately, against Jesus' own approaching, far costlier sacrifice.
Preachers can use this word to press congregations toward worship that costs something real, resisting the temptation to substitute cheap or merely verbal devotion for the kind of costly love Mary displays. This word opens a teaching doorway on costly worship: Mary's perfume, worth close to a year's wages, presses congregations to ask whether their own devotion to Jesus costs them anything real, or only what is convenient to spare.
It gives preachers a concrete, quantifiable picture of sacrificial love just before Jesus' own far greater sacrifice. It corrects worship that measures devotion only by feeling or words, missing the concrete, costly substance of Mary's actual gift. Frame πολύτιμος as a real, quantifiable cost Mary chooses to bear for Jesus, not as vague symbolic language for generic devotion.
John.12.3
Frame πολύτιμος as a real, quantifiable cost Mary chooses to bear for Jesus, not as vague symbolic language for generic devotion. Linguistically, πολύτιμος should be allowed to name costly, of great value without carrying claims the cited passages do not make.
Scripture repeatedly commends costly, sacrificial worship over token offerings (2 Sam 24:24, 'I will not offer... that which costs me nothing'), and Mary's anointing in John 12:3 stands in that same trajectory of worship measured by real cost, offered just before Jesus' own costly death.
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