VI. “LEST THERE BE AN UPROAR”

Matth. 26:5.—“But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar among the people.”

I have already alluded to the insubordinate condition of Judæa in general, about the period of our Lord’s ministry. We have here an example of the feverish and irritable state of the capital itself, in particular, during the feast of the Passover.

“The feast of the Passover,” says Josephus (who relates an event that happened some few years after Christ’s death), “being at hand, wherein it is our custom to use unleavened bread, and a great multitude being drawn together from all parts to the feast, Cumanus (the governor) fearing that some disturbance might fall out amongst them, commands one cohort of soldiers to arm themselves and stand in the porticoes of the temple, to suppress any riot which might occur; and this precaution the governors of Judæa before him had adopted.”—(Antiq. xx. 4. § 3.)

In spite, however, of these prudent measures, a tumult arose on this very occasion, in which, according to Josephus, twenty thousand Jews perished.