Not during the feast is made into a complete statement by Good News Translation: “We must not do it during the festival.” The feast is obviously a reference to the Passover (see verse 2).

The impersonal construction of the Greek text, represented by Revised Standard Version‘s lest there be a tumult among the people, is translated by Good News Translation as “the people will riot.” The noun rendered tumult is also used in 27.24 but nowhere else in the Gospel.

For many translators indirect discourse is more natural; as for example, “But they did not feel they could arrest Jesus and have him put to death during the festival, because there was a possibility that the people would riot.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .