John Lightfoot on Mark 14:3

[Of spikenard.] What if I should render it, nardin of Balanus? "Nardin consists of omphacium, balaninum, bulrush, nard, amomum, myrrh, balsam," &c. And again, "Myrobalanum is common to the Troglodytes, and to Thebais, and to that part of Arabia which divides Judea from Egypt; a growing ointment, as appears by the very name, whereby also is shown that it is the mast [glans] of a tree."

Balanus, as all know among the Greeks, is glans, mast, or an acorn: so also is pistaca, among the Talmudists. There are prescribed by the Talmudists various remedies for various diseases: among others, this; For a pleurisy (or, as others will have it, a certain disease of the head), take to the quantity of the mast of ammoniac. The Gloss is, the mast of ammoniac is the mast of cedar. The Aruch saith, "the mast of ammoniac is the grain of a fruit, which is called glans."

The word nard, is Hebrew from the word nerad; and the word spikenard is Syriac, from the word pistaca. So that the ointment might be called Balanine ointment, in the composition of which, nard and mast, or myrobalane, were the chief ingredients.

[Poured it on his head.] In Talmudic language, "What are the testimonies, that the woman married is a virgin? If she goes forth to be married with a veil let down over her eyes, yet with her head not veiled. The scattering of nuts is also a testimony. These are in Judea; but what are in Babylon? Rabh saith, If ointment be upon the head of the Rabbins." (The Gloss is, "The women poured ointment upon the heads of the scholars, and anointed them.") "Rabh Papa said to Abai, Does that doctor speak of the aromatic ointment used in bridechambers?" (The Gloss is, "Are the Rabbins such, to be anointed with such ointments?") "He answered, O thou unacquainted with the customs, did not thy mother pour out ointment for you (at thy wedding) upon the heads of the Rabbins? Thus, a certain Rabbin got a wife for his son in the house of Rabbah Bar Ulla; and they said to him, Rabbah Bar Ulla also got a wife in the house of a certain Rabbin for his son, and he poured out ointment upon the head of the Rabbins."

From the tradition produced it may be asked, whether it were customary in Judea to wet the heads of the Rabbins with ointments, in the marriages of virgins, as it was in Babylon? Or, whether it were so customary otherwise to anoint their heads; as that such an anointing at weddings were not so memorable a matter as it was in Babylon? Certainly, in both places, however they anointed men's heads for health's sake, it was accounted unfitting for Rabbins to smell of aromatical ointments: "It is indecent (say the Jerusalem Talmudists) for a scholar of the wise men to smell of spices." And you have the judgment of the Babylonians in this very place, when it is inquired among them, and that, as it were, with a certain kind of dissatisfaction, Whether Rabbins be such as that they should be anointed with aromatical ointments, as the more nice sort are wont to be anointed? From this opinion, everywhere received among them, you may more aptly understand, why the other disciples as well as Judas, did bear the lavish of the ointment with some indignation: he, out of wicked covetousness; but they, partly, as not wiling that so precious a thing should be lost, and partly as not liking so nice a custom should be used towards their master, from which the masters of the Jews themselves were so averse. And our Saviour, taking off the envy of what was done, applies this anointing to his burial, both in his intention and in the intention of the woman; that it might not seem to be done out of some delicate niceness.