When does Generosity become Extravagance? (John 12:7)

The ESV has, “Leave her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial.” The CSB reads, “Leave her alone; she has kept it for the day of my burial.” This keeps the full force of the ἵνα but, to my mind, makes no sense. Mary didn’t keep the perfume for the day of Jesus’ burial; she had just poured all of it on his feet. The ESV includes a footnote, “Or Leave her alone; she intended to keep it”, adding “intended” to indicate that Mary changed her mind.

The related difficulty of the verse is the aorist subjunctive τηρήσῃ, translated by the NASB as, “Let her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial.” The problem is that Mary has already poured out the perfume, which explains the textual variant τετηρηκεν and the omission of ἵνα, “she has kept this perfume” referring to Jesus’ present.

It is probably best to see the expression as an example of ellipsis; and therefore the question is, what has been left out? The NRSV suggests, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.”

The NLT reads, “Leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial,” adding the word “preparation,” which is actually what happened. Mary didn't wait for his death but was preparing him for his death.

My Dad’s suggestion is, “Leave her alone. [The reason why she didn’t sell the pure nard was] so that (hoti) she might keep it for my burial” (Expositor’s Bible Commentary Revised, 10:530).

Ah, the joys of ellipsis. My guess is that Jesus is telling Judas (ἄφες is singular) to not object to Mary’s extravagance. She used the perfume to symbolically prepare Jesus for his death. Mary apparently had entered more into the mind of Jesus than had his twelve disciples, and she knew what was coming.

Extravagance is an interesting concept. In our wealth-centered culture, extravagance is generally used to describe something that's not good. And yet, there are situations in which extravagance is the only appropriate response. Jesus's death on the cross was obviously an extravagant response to our sin. Many Christian non-profits require an extravagant commitment of workers’ time that is sometimes met with extravagant gifts from donors. In light of Jesus’s love for us, certainly generosity is almost always the appropriate response, sometimes bleeding over into extravagance.