Simon had already looked at the woman, but he saw only her reputation: "she is a sinner" (Luke 7:39). Jesus asks him to look again. Barnes reads the question as, "You see what this woman has done to me, compared with what you have done." Matthew Henry puts it, "Thou lookest upon her with contempt, but consider how much kinder a friend she is to me than thou art." Jesus turned toward her as He spoke to Simon (Luke 7:44), placing her in front of him as the living example of the story he had just judged.

Jesus answers His own question with three contrasts. "Thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears" (Luke 7:44). "Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet" (Luke 7:45). "My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment" (Luke 7:46). Then He draws the conclusion: "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much" (Luke 7:47), and to her He says, "Thy sins are forgiven" (Luke 7:48). Luke records no reply from Simon.

Guests at a feast did not sit upright on chairs. Barnes explains that they reclined on their left side with their feet stretched out away from the table, "so that persons could easily approach them." That is how the woman could stand "at his feet behind him" (Luke 7:38).

Washing a guest's feet was basic hospitality. Barnes says sandals were taken off on entering a house, and "to do this, or to bring water for it, was one of the rites of hospitality." Gill calls it "a civility very common in those hot countries, where walking without stockings, and only with sandals." Jesus also names a kiss of greeting and oil for the head (Luke 7:45-46). Simon had offered none of these.

Jesus sees people truly. Simon assumed that a real prophet would know who the woman was (Luke 7:39). Barnes notes that "prophet" here means "one who knows the hearts of people." Jesus proved He was exactly that: He knew Simon's unspoken thoughts and He knew the woman's heart. Where Simon saw a sinner, Jesus saw a forgiven woman pouring out her love. Henry describes her tears as "tears of affection to me, tears of affliction for sin."

The question also turns the light on Simon. Gill says the closing words about loving little have "a very special respect to Simon, the Pharisee, whose debts, in his own opinion, were few." Jesus does not shame the woman before the guests; He defends her and gently exposes the coldness of the one who judged her.