Thematic Bible: Not sacred


Thematic Bible



During the year before each young woman’s turn to go to King Ahasuerus, the harem regulation required her to receive beauty treatments with oil of myrrh for six months and then with perfumes and cosmetics for another six months.

The fragrance of your perfume is intoxicating;
your name is perfume poured out.
No wonder young women adore you.

How delightful your love is, my sister, my bride.
Your love is much better than wine,
and the fragrance of your perfume than any balsam.

They drink wine by the bowlful
and anoint themselves with the finest oils
but do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph.

Hezekiah gave them a hearing and showed them his whole treasure house—the silver, the gold, the spices, and the precious oil—and his armory, and everything that was found in his treasuries. There was nothing in his palace and in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them.

Dead flies make a perfumer’s oil ferment and stink;
so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.


While He was in Bethany at the house of Simon who had a serious skin disease, as He was reclining at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of pure and expensive fragrant oil of nard. She broke the jar and poured it on His head. But some were expressing indignation to one another: "Why has this fragrant oil been wasted? For this oil might have been sold for more than 300 denarii and given to the poor." And they began to scold her.

Then Mary took a pound of fragrant oil-pure and expensive nard-anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped His feet with her hair. So the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. Then one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot (who was about to betray Him), said, "Why wasn't this fragrant oil sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor?"


a woman approached Him with an alabaster jar of very expensive fragrant oil. She poured it on His head as He was reclining at the table.


Holman Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers.