Mark 14:2

2 But they said: Not on the festival day, lest there should be a tumult among 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 Now the feast of the pasch and of the Azymes was after two days: and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might by some wile lay hold on him and kill him.

2 But they said: Not on the festival day, lest there should be a tumult among the people.

3 And when he was in Bethania, in the house of Simon the leper, and was at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of precious spikenard. And breaking the alabaster box, she poured it out upon his head.

4 Now there were some that had indignation within themselves and said: Why was this waste of the ointment made?

5 For this ointment might have been sold for more than three hundred pence and given to the poor. And they murmured against her.