Mark 14:2

2 for they said, "Not during the feast, lest there 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 It was now two days before the Passover and the feast of Unleavened Bread. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth, and kill him;

2 for they said, "Not during the feast, lest there be a tumult of the people."

3 And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head.

4 But there were some who said to themselves indignantly, "Why was the ointment thus wasted?

5 For this ointment might have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and given to the poor." And they reproached her.