But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar among the people.
Read Chapter 26
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Not on the festival day. Such a day seemed to them at first improper, at least to some of them; but this was overruled, when Judas informed them how he could and would put him into their hands on Thursday night. St. Jerome takes notice, that when they said, Not on the festival, it was not through a motive of religion that they made this objection, but only lest a tumult should happen in his favour among the people; (Witham) for they looked upon him as a great prophet.
Behold how fearful these people are, not of offending God, nor of increasing the enormity of their most atrocious crime, by committing it on the solemnity of the Passover, but of offending men by raising a tumult. Still boiling over with rage, they no sooner found the Traitor, than yielding to the impulse of their blind fury, they gladly seized the opportunity offered, and immolating their victim in the middle of their solemnity. Though this their wickedness was the instrument of the divine dispensation, to bring about t...
What did they consult together? That they might seize Him secretly, or that they might put Him to death? Both; for they feared the people. Wherefore also they waited for the feast to be past; for they said, Not on the feast day. For the devil, lest he should make the passion conspicuous, was not willing it should take place at the passover; but they, lest there should be an uproar. Mark them then ever fearing, not the ills from God, neither lest any greater pollution should arise to them from the season, but in every case the ills from men.
Yet for all this, boiling with anger, they changed their purpose again. For though they had said, Not at the feast time; when they found the traitor, they waited not for the time, but slew Him at the feast. But why did they take Him then? They were boiling with rage, as I said; and they expected then to find Him, and all things they did as blinded. For though He Himself made the greatest use of their wickedness for His own dispensation, they were...
With such ill designs they came to the chief Priest, seeking a sanction whencea prohibition should have issued. There were at that time several Chief Priests, while the Law allowed but of one, whence it was manifest that the dissolution of the Jewish state was having its beginning. For Moses had commanded that there should be one Chief Priest, whose office should be filled up at death; but in process of time it grew to be annual. All those then who had been Chief Priests are here called “Chief Priests.”.
For what then did they conspire, to seize Him secretly, or put Him to death? For both; but they feared the people, and therefore waited till the feast was over, for “they said, not on the feast-day.” For the Devil would not that Christ should suffer at the Passover, that His Passion might not be notorious. The Chief Priests had no fear in respect of God, namely, that their guilt might be aggravated by the season, but took into account human things only, “Lest there be an uproar among t...
Serm. 58, 2: This precaution of the Chief Priests arose not from reverence forthe festival, but, from care for the success of their plot; they feared an insurrectionat that season, not because of the guilt the populace might thereby incur, but because they might rescue Christ.
Serm. 58, 1: We recognise here a providential arrangement whereby the chief men of the Jews, who had often sought occasion of effecting their cruel purposes against Christ, could never yet succeed till the days of the paschal celebration. For it behoved that the things which had long been promised in symbol and mystery should be accomplished in manifest reality, that the typical lamb should be displaced by the true, and one sacrifice embrace the whole catalogue of the varied victims. That shadows should give way to substance, and copies to the presence of the original; victim is commuted for victim, blood is abolished by blood, and the festival of the Law is at once fulfilled and changed.
This, “then,” is to be referred to the preceding words, and means before the Feast of the Passover.
They are condemned both because they were gathered together, and because they were the Chief Priests; for the more the numbers, and the higher the rank and station of those who band together for any villainy, the greater the enormity of what they do, and the heavier the punishment stored up for them. To show the Lord’s innocence and openness, the Evangelist adds, “that they might take Jesus by subtilty, and kill him.”
. The law commanded that there be one high priest for life, but they, contrary to the law, had then the practice of making a new high priest each year, so that there were many. So they approached the high priest of that year to deliberate a murder with him whose duty it was to punish murderers. "The high priests" are those who had already fulfilled their year of service. Intending to commit this unholy murder, they were fearful, not of God, but of the multitude. For the high priests were afraid that if they murdered Jesus on the feast, the multitude would rise up in His defense, or that the people would refrain from offering the prescribed sacrifices on account of the murder, and so the high priests would lose the profit they gained from the sacrifices. Perhaps the high priests also feared that if He were murdered on the feast, His death would become all the more renowned and noteworthy; for they wished to erase all memory of Him. So in this manner they plotted before the feast to murd...
