What Does Matthew 26:5 Mean?
But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar among the people.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar among the people.THE KEY
Their delay reveals that the crowd’s reaction, not the violence they plan, is what governs their timing.
THE MEANING
The verse exposes power measuring each action by the crowd’s likely response. With the people gathered, a public act risks becoming open commotion, so timing becomes part of control. The calm they seek can conceal a plan that remains in motion.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that postponing violence means choosing peace: their stated concern is the crowd’s reaction, not the killing they intend.
THE ROOT
θόρυβος
thórybos
GROWS FROM
θορυβ-
Greek word family
Noisy commotion; tumult.
The Greek word names audible public tumult, not just a private worry. Its related verb describes a crowd being stirred into an uproar, showing why the speakers fear the people’s reaction as a force that could disrupt their plan.
ALSO GROWS
thorubeō: To stir up a tumult; make an uproar.
θορυβέω
This related verb describes a city being stirred into uproar in Acts 17:5, where crowd noise becomes a political force.
thoruboumenon: Making a noise; in tumult.
θορυβούμενον
The same word family describes the noise of mourners gathered in a house in Matthew 9:23, making the commotion here concrete and public.
THE PATTERN
When power depends on controlling outcomes, the crowd’s response becomes a force to fear, obey, or manipulate.
Saul said to Samuel, I have missed the mark, for I have crossed over the mouth of the LORD and your words, because I feared the people and heard and responded to their voice.If we let him go on like this, all will lean their weight into him, and the Romans will come and lift away both our place and our nation.But the Jews who would not be persuaded, boiling with envy, took to themselves certain wicked men from the marketplace, and made a crowd, and set the whole city in an uproar, and stood over the house of Jason, and sought to lead them out to the people.THE THREAD
But the Jews who would not be persuaded, boiling with envy, took to themselves certain wicked men from the marketplace, and made a crowd, and set the whole city in an uproar, and stood over the house of Jason, and sought to lead them out to the people.The verb rendered “set all the city on an uproar” belongs to the same Greek word family as θόρυβος. Here the crowd is deliberately stirred, showing how public tumult can become a political force, the force the speakers fear in Matthew 26:5.
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