Mark 14:1

Now the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were two days away, and the chief priests and scribes were looking for a covert way to arrest Jesus and kill Him.

Berean Standard Bible

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Study note

Setting — The narrator places the scene two days before the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread, noting that the chief priests and scribes were actively seeking a covert method to arrest and kill Jesus.

The words — Ἦν (Ēn) translates literally as "it was" and establishes the temporal marker, while ἄζυμα (azuma) denotes the Feast of Unleavened Bread, identifying the specific festival cycle in view.

The thread — The approaching festival timeline appears in Luke 22:1, the Passover slaughter timing aligns with Exodus 12:6, and John 13:1 similarly marks the period just before the Passover Feast.

Why it lands — The text records the religious leaders' calculated fear and preference for secrecy over public timing, requiring the reader to observe the deliberate, hidden nature of the plot against Jesus before the feast.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.

The Greek words

King James Version

After two days was the feast of the passover, and of unleavened bread: and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take him by craft, and put him to death.

Cross-references

Exodus 12:6 You must keep it until the fourteenth day of the month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel will slaughter the animals at twilight.
Luke 22:1 Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread, called the Passover, was approaching,
John 13:1 It was now just before the Passover Feast, and Jesus knew that His hour had come to leave this world and return to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the very end.
Deuteronomy 16:1 Observe the month of Abib and celebrate the Passover to the LORD your God, because in the month of Abib the LORD your God brought you out of Egypt by night.
Leviticus 23:5 The Passover to the LORD begins at twilight on the fourteenth day of the first month.
Acts 4:25 You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of Your servant, our father David: ‘Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?
Numbers 28:16 The fourteenth day of the first month is the LORD’s Passover.
Psalms 62:4 They fully intend to cast him down from his lofty perch; they delight in lies; with their mouths they bless, but inwardly they curse. Selah
Psalms 64:2 Hide me from the scheming of the wicked, from the mob of workers of iniquity,
Matthew 12:14 But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.