
Once a woman brought a handful of fine flour, and the priest despised her, saying, “See what she offers! What is there in this to eat? What is there in this to offer up?” It was shown to him in a dream: “Do not despise her! It is regarded as if she had sacrificed her own life” (Lev. Rab. 3.5).

In addition to experiencing the loss of her spouse, making the widow one of the more vulnerable in Israel, she had been placed into this humiliating predicament by the established authorities and their banking system. The people and system had rendered her estate/house “devoured” by requiring the widow to contribute to that very system her remaining means (i.e., the last of her funds) to live. Jesus condemns the duplicitous temple leadership, their malicious behaviors (12:40c), and the temple system (13:2) that worsened the poor widow’s condition (12:44c) and left her resources now completely “devoured,” which was represented in the poor widow giving her last two coins.
Note: Another possible reading for the contrast Jesus made between the surplus of the wealthy and the widow’s last two coins might suggest that those with the surplus have an oblivious detachment (malicious or banal) from the plight of the poor widow whose life was about to be devoured—they have surplus and her whole life will be devoured—and that those who are called to observe the contrast (i.e., disciples and readers/listeners) are not to do the same.