Mark 14:2

2 and they said, `Not in the feast, lest there shall be a tumult of the people.'

Mark 14:2 Meaning and Commentary

Mark 14:2

But they said not on the feast day
The feast of the passover, and of unleavened bread, which was nigh at hand, and would be two days hence, when there would be a great concourse of people from all parts to keep it: and therefore they did not choose to seize him, and put him to death at that time,

lest there should be an uproar of the people;
or among them, lest they should rise in his favour, and rescue him out of their hands; (See Gill on Matthew 26:5).

Mark 14:2 In-Context

1 And the passover and the unleavened food were after two days, and the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how, by guile, having taken hold of him, they might kill him;

2 and they said, `Not in the feast, lest there shall be a tumult of the people.'

3 And he, being in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, at his reclining (at meat), there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment, of spikenard, very precious, and having broken the alabaster box, did pour on his head;

4 and there were certain much displeased within themselves, and saying, `For what hath this waste of the ointment been made?

5 for this could have been sold for more than three hundred denaries, and given to the poor;' and they were murmuring at her.