Mark 14:2

2 for they said, "Not during the festival, or the people will riot."

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 It was now two days before Pesach (that is, the festival of Matzah), and the head cohanim and the Torah-teachers were trying to find some way to arrest Yeshua surreptitiously and have him put to death;

2 for they said, "Not during the festival, or the people will riot."

3 While he was in Beit-Anyah in the home of Shim`on (a man who had had tzara`at), and as he was eating, a woman came with an alabaster jar of perfume, pure oil of nard, very costly. She broke the jar and poured the perfume over Yeshua's head.

4 But some there angrily said to themselves, "Why this waste of perfume?

5 It could have been sold for a year's wages and given to the poor!" And they scolded her.