Mark 14:1

1 In only two days the eight-day Festival of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread would begin. The high priests and religion scholars were looking for a way they could seize Jesus by stealth and kill him.

Mark 14:1 Meaning and Commentary

Mark 14:1

After two days was [the feast of] the passover
That is, two days after Christ had delivered the foregoing discourse concerning the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem, was the feast of the passover; which was kept in commemoration of God's passing over the houses of the Israelites, when he destroyed the firstborn of Egypt, and made way for the deliverance of the children of Israel from thence: and which was kept by eating the passover lamb; and which, properly speaking, is the feast of the passover:

and of unleavened bread;
which was the same feast with the other, called so from the unleavened bread which was then eaten; though with this difference, the passover lamb was only eaten on the first night, but unleavened bread was eaten for seven days together. The Syriac, Persic, and Ethiopic versions render it, "the passover of unleavened bread", leaving out the copulative "and".

And the chief priests and Scribes sought how they might take him by
craft;
that is, Jesus,

and put him to death:
for which purpose they assembled together in Caiaphas the high priest's palace, and there took counsel together how to accomplish it; see ( Matthew 26:2-4 ) .

Mark 14:1 In-Context

1 In only two days the eight-day Festival of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread would begin. The high priests and religion scholars were looking for a way they could seize Jesus by stealth and kill him.

2 They agreed that it should not be done during Passover Week. "We don't want the crowds up in arms," they said.

3 Jesus was at Bethany, a guest of Simon the Leper. While he was eating dinner, a woman came up carrying a bottle of very expensive perfume. Opening the bottle, she poured it on his head.

4 Some of the guests became furious among themselves. "That's criminal! A sheer waste!

5 This perfume could have been sold for well over a year's wages and handed out to the poor." They swelled up in anger, nearly bursting with indignation over her.