Then Judas, who delivered him up, seeing that he had been condemned, filled with remorse, returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders,
Matthew's account pauses the trial of Jesus to tell us what happened to the man who handed Him over. Judas sees the verdict, feels its weight, and tries to undo his deal. So why did turning back save him nothing?
Judas acts only after he sees the verdict. Commentators suggest he had expected the Lord to slip away, as He had done before.
It looks as if he had expected the Lord to escape His enemies and walk away from them, as He had done before. But now he saw Him condemned and submitting to their hands, and remorse and horror at what he had done swept over him.
Judas had watched Jesus escape a hostile crowd and walk on water.
He had known the Lord in great danger before. Once the people took up stones to throw at Him, and Judas saw Him hide Himself, walk through the middle of them, and go on His way. He knew how Jesus could walk on the sea. He could overcome every obstacle in nature. So why not the raging storm of human passion and violence? But Judas was deceived, whatever his calculations may have been. He gave in to greed. He bargained for the blood of Jesus. To his horror, he found it only too true.
The ESV says Judas "changed his mind." Older translations say he "repented himself." The commentators agree this was not the repentance that saves. Remorse and repentance can look alike, but they are not the same thing.
Repentance is the judgment of my sin that I have in the light of love, and grace known. Remorse is produced by viewing the sin in the light only of its probable results. Repentance begets hope, remorse leads only to despair. Repentance leads the soul back to God, remorse drives it to deeper sin, and further into Satan's hands.
Judas did more than many people ever do — and it still fell short.
There is a mourning that ends in despair. Judas' mourning was like that: he saw his sin, he was sorry, he said Christ was in the right, he gave the money back. Judas, who is in hell, did more than many nowadays.
Judas gave the money back and named his crime. What was missing was not honesty but faith — and the very words of his confession show it.
He shrieks out even in their ears the confession of his sin in having betrayed the innocent blood. But there it ends: "innocent blood." He does not say holy or righteous, still less "the Holy and the Righteous One." The glory of the Son of God has no part in it. It neither heals him nor even wounds him. There is no turning to Him whom he had kept company with so long — no sense of anyone he can turn to. There is, in short, no faith, and therefore no repentance.
Judas owned up, and it still left him with nothing.
Sadly, confessing sin without trusting God for His grace is worthless. It produces nothing good.
The sum Judas carried back was not chosen at random. Israel's law had already fixed that exact figure.
Thirty pieces of silver was the price of a slave who had been killed. If the ox gores a slave, male or female, the owner shall give to their master thirty shekels of silver (Exodus 21:32). Oh, what unfathomable love! The Lord from heaven became like a slave. The love He looked for He did not find.
Judas belonged to the twelve, the small group of men who lived closest to Jesus.
He was only farther from Jesus in heart because he was nearer to Him outwardly. Some people have the greatest outward privileges while the truth of God does not rule their souls. They are the most guilty of all.
And the sin behind it is one anyone can commit.
Many a person sells Jesus in practice, if not literally. If God is calling sinners to know His Son and His grace, it is an awful thing to reject Him. That is selling Jesus for some object in this world which we either want to gain or love too much to part with. In Judas this came out in its worst form. But eternal ruin is not limited to Judas, the son of perdition.
- Miscalculation. Judas looks to have expected Jesus to slip away, as He had before. The verdict shattered that hope.
- Remorse. He looked at his sin only in the light of its results, and that view breeds despair, never hope.
- No faith. He confessed "innocent blood" and never got as far as the Son of God. Confession without trust in God's grace saves nobody.
- The price. Thirty pieces of silver was the legal value of a dead slave; that is what the Lord of glory was worth to them.
- The warning. Being close to Christ outwardly, while the truth of God does not rule the heart, leaves a person more guilty, not less. Anyone who trades Him for something they love more repeats what Judas did.
saying, I have sinned [in] having delivered up guiltless blood. But they said, What is that to us? see *thou* [to that].
Judas throws the thirty pieces of silver back at the men who paid him and calls the blood he sold innocent. His words are true and his sorrow is real, yet he dies by his own hand — so what was missing?
Commentators say Judas had not expected the arrest to end this way. He had watched Jesus slip out of danger before.
Clearly Judas did not expect such an end for Jesus. He had known the Lord in great danger before. He had seen Him hide Himself when the people picked up stones to throw at Him, go through the middle of them, and pass on His way. He knew how Jesus could walk on the sea and overcome every obstacle in nature. So why not the raging storm of human passion and violence? But Judas was deceived, whatever his calculations may have been. He gave in to greed. He bargained for the blood of Jesus. To his horror, he found it was all too true.
That guess, if it was his, made his sin worse, not lighter.
He seems to have thought He would escape as before. But this made his sin worse, for he knew that power was there. Money governed his heart, and by it Satan led him into the horrible sin. Yet Satan could not shield him once the sin was done. What was money to a man in despair? The fruit and witness of sin is no comfort to the one who is lost by it.
The word Judas uses for the blood is a rare one.
A word often used in the Old Testament as the opposite of those showing wickedness. It occurs only twice in the New Testament. Judas uses it about the Lord, who could truly be called "guiltless." Pilate uses it about himself. Matthew 27:4, 24.
The mouth that testifies to Christ's innocence here is the last mouth anyone would call.
The very man who handed the Saviour over to His enemies had to confess His innocence. God so ordained it; and this is very striking.
Judas admits the sin and hands back the money. Yet writers point to what he does not say, and to the One he never turns to.
He shouts out even in their ears the confession of his sin in having betrayed the innocent blood. But there it ends: "innocent blood" — not holy or righteous, and still less "the Holy and the Righteous One." The glory of the Son of God has no part in it. That glory neither heals him nor even wounds him. There is no turning to Him whom he had been with so long — no sense of anyone he can turn to. There is, in short, no faith, and therefore no repentance.
Writers set Judas beside Peter to show the difference.
Repentance is judging my own sin in the light of the love and grace I have come to know. Remorse comes from viewing the sin only in the light of its likely results. Repentance gives birth to hope, remorse leads only to despair. Repentance leads the soul back to God. Remorse drives it into deeper sin and further into Satan's hands. Judas, who did not know what grace was, went out and hanged himself in remorse over his terrible wickedness. Peter, who did know what grace was, went out and wept bitterly.
Judas takes his agony to the religious leaders, and they brush him off with four words.
"What is that to us? See to it yourself" (v. 4). What a testimony to their degraded condition! It was no question with them whether He was innocent or not. They had Him in their hands and were determined not to let Him go.
On the evidence of this verse, some writers rate the priests as the greater sinners.
The very name Judas has become a byword for wickedness, but Annas and Caiaphas were worse than he. Verse 4 shows this. Judas betrayed innocent blood and they condemned it. He at least had some feeling of remorse for what he had done — enough to drive him to destroy himself. They had no feeling whatever.
The warning here is not only about Judas.
Many a person sells Jesus in effect, if not literally. Let every soul watch that his sin is not in some way like that of Judas. If God is calling sinners to know His Son and His grace, it is an awful thing to reject Him. To reject Him is to sell Jesus for something in this world that we want to gain, or love too much to give up.
- Witness — God arranged it so that the man who sold Jesus was the one who had to call His blood innocent.
- Miscalculation — he seems to have banked on Jesus escaping again, so he sold a power he had seen at work.
- Confession — he named his sin and still perished. He said "innocent blood," but never turned to the One he had betrayed.
- Contrast — remorse looks at what the sin will cost and ends in despair. Repentance looks at sin in the light of grace and goes back to God, as Peter did.
- Coldness — the priests' "see to it yourself" shows a conscience colder than the traitor's own; they felt nothing at all.
And having cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, he left the place, and went away and hanged himself.
Judas has carried the silver back to the men who paid him. This verse leaves him alone with what he has done, and with a question: why did a man who confessed his sin never find mercy?
Judas says the right words about his crime, yet his own account of Jesus stops short. One writer traces the failure to the exact term Judas chose:
Clearly it is the awful agony of remorse that awakes now in Judas, and not repentance. He cannot keep the money he has gained. Even for the chief priests, the blood-stain will not come off it. He shrieks out in their own ears the confession of his sin in betraying the innocent blood. But there it ends: "innocent blood." Not holy, not righteous, and far less "the Holy and the Righteous One." The glory of the Son of God has no part in it. It neither heals him nor even strikes him. There is no turning to Him with whom he had spent so long, no sense of anyone he can turn to. There is, in short, no faith, and therefore no repentance.
Peter also failed his Lord, and ended somewhere else entirely. One writer sets the two men side by side:
Here is the difference between repentance and remorse. Repentance is the judgment of my sin that I have in the light of love, and grace known. Remorse comes from looking at the sin only in the light of its likely results. Repentance begets hope, remorse leads only to despair. Repentance leads the soul back to God, remorse drives it to deeper sin, and further into Satan's hands. Judas did not know what grace was. In remorse over his utter wickedness, he went out and hanged himself. Peter did know what grace was. He knew then, better than ever, how much the Lord loved him, and he went out and wept bitterly.
The word for "temple" here is not the one for the whole set of buildings. It means the sanctuary, where only priests could go. Commentators differ over whether Judas went inside at all:
The word used here means the sanctuary itself, not the temple buildings as a whole. What brought Judas in there? We can hardly suppose he was a priest. If he was not, his connection with the priests must have been very close for him to be let in where only priests might come. … He may have only thrown the money into it. But if he did go in, it shows the desperation of the betrayer, now feeling the bitterest remorse as he thought of his condemned Master, with the surest dread of God's wrath.
Judas got the money he bargained for, and it bought him nothing:
Money governed his heart. By it Satan led him into this horrible sin. But Satan could not shield him once the sin was done. What was money to a man in despair? He goes to those who ought to have led him in the right way. They were his heartless partners in the wickedness. He throws down the money in despair. Sin once committed lies on the conscience. All is dark in the trail behind it. And if the love of God is not there to hold on to, nothing remains but despair — dark, black despair.
The verse ends with Judas taking his own life, and one writer adds what the Lord had called him:
He went and hanged himself, and probably fell from the tree, so that his bowels gushed out. It was an awful end to a sinful course. The Lord called him the "son of perdition."
The silver landed where a prophet had said it would:
Messiah, who was the embodiment of all beauty, was priced at thirty pieces of silver. Judas fixed the price and got the silver. In his remorse, before he took his own life, he threw the money down in the temple. That fulfilled the words "in the house of the Lord." The chief priests took the silver and used it to buy the potter's field. That fulfilled the words "I … cast them to the potter."
The verse is not only about one man. It marks out a pattern anyone can repeat:
Many a person sells Jesus in practice, if not in fact. Let every soul make sure that his sin is not in some way like that of Judas. If God is calling sinners to know His Son, and the grace that comes by Him, it is an awful thing to reject Him. It is selling Jesus for something in this world that we either want to gain or love too much to give up. In Judas this came out in its worst form; but perdition is not confined to him who is the son of perdition.
- Bait — Satan used money to draw Judas in. The sin was done, and the silver was worth nothing to him.
- Confession — Judas called the blood innocent, but never called Jesus holy or righteous. His confession had no faith in it.
- Remorse — remorse looks at what sin will cost, and ends in despair. Repentance looks at sin in the light of known grace, and ends in hope.
- Contrast — Peter failed too, and wept; Judas, who never knew grace, went out and hanged himself. The difference was not the size of the sin.
- Warning — many still sell Jesus for something they want in this world. Ruin is not limited to Judas.
And the chief priests took the pieces of silver and said, It is not lawful to cast them into the Corban, since it is [the] price of blood.
The betrayal money comes back to the men who paid it. Their first thought is not horror at what they bought. It is a ruling about the temple fund: the coins are "blood money," so the men who spent them without a qualm now judge them too dirty for God's house.
Behind "treasury" stands the word "Corban." It meant a gift set apart for God, so the coins raised a question of dedication.
People used the word "Corban" for an offering, above all as something dedicated to Jehovah. Later they used it in the same sense for the sacred treasure of the temple. The chief priests decided that Judas' pieces of silver could not be added to that holy store.
The ruling keeps the law and misses the crime.
Notice here the dreadful way in which conscience can deceive itself. They had felt no scruple about giving the money for that blood. Yet the very same money with which they had bought Christ, they will not put into the treasury! What a picture of the human heart and of human consistency! They are exact about outward, ceremonial points, and unfeeling about moral corruption.
A scruple is not the same thing as a conscience. One writer draws the line between them, and names the god a scrupulous man serves.
What a testimony to the blindness of conscience! How different scruples are from conscience! Good and evil touch the conscience, which in itself is the noblest of our powers. The scrupulous man is like a slave. He is afraid for himself. He busies himself with rules and fears to break them. The god that the scrupulous man serves is a god who watches over what affects him... It is a false, spiteful god, the god of a heart that does not know the true God, even when the heart names Him the Eternal.
Conscience should have accused them. Instead they kept their religion and used it to cheat themselves.
Conscience would have told them that the guilt of bribing Judas to betray Jesus was theirs. But sin had long ago seared it, as a hot iron sears flesh. Now it was dead toward God, and cruel toward Judas without a trace of feeling. Religion without Christ only serves to cheat the soul.
Notice which of the two they feared more: the house, or the One who dwelt in it.
The Jewish rulers had bought the blood of Jesus. But they admit that the money they paid is so defiled that they will not use it for the temple. They admit that the presence of the house is more to be feared than the presence of Him who dwelt in it.
They shrink back from a defilement they made themselves.
The silver was back in the hands of the priests. It gave them the chance to crown their other sins with the highest hypocrisy. Keeping strictly to the letter of the law, they could not put it in the treasury, because it was the price of blood. But who made it such? Why, they themselves!
The religious leaders as a class had this same fault.
They are too exact and eager about the small outward details of religion, but they neglect its solid realities. They strain out the gnat and swallow the camel. So the chief priests bought Christ's blood for money without a scruple, yet would not put that money into the treasury, because it was the price of blood.
Their careful ruling did not frustrate God's word; it carried it out.
How those who had shown themselves so conscienceless are very religious! "It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money" (v. 6). They never thought that their fussy exactness was fulfilling the word of God.
- The money — the silver comes back, and the men who paid it to buy the blood of Jesus will not touch it.
- The rule — the treasury held money dedicated to God. They guarded that one rule and neglected the solid realities of religion.
- The blindness — a scruple fears breaking an ordinance; a conscience fears God. They had the first and had lost the second.
- The house — they feared the temple more than the One who dwelt in it. That is religion without Christ.
- The outcome — they themselves made the money blood money. Their fussy ruling only fulfilled the word of God.
And having taken counsel, they bought with them the field of the potter for a burying-ground for strangers.
Judas has thrown the silver back at the priests. They meet, talk it over, and spend the money on a field where strangers can be buried. Why did men who had paid for the death of Jesus suddenly find the coins too dirty to keep? And why did their decision end up fulfilling a prophecy?
The men who bought this field had first paid for the blood of Jesus. One writer draws out the difference between keeping rules and having a conscience:
What a testimony to the blindness of conscience! How much scruples differ from conscience! The scrupulous man is like a slave. He is afraid for himself, taken up with rules, and afraid of breaking them. The god the scrupulous man serves is a god who watches over what affects him. It is a false, bitter god, the god of a heart that does not know the true God, even while the heart calls him the Eternal.
The verdict of another writer on the same scene is that outward correctness had replaced any inward reckoning with God:
Conscience would have told them that the guilt of bribing Judas to betray Jesus was theirs, but it had long been seared as with a hot iron, and now was utterly dead toward God, as it shows itself heartlessly cruel toward Judas. Religion without Christ only serves as the means to cheat the soul.
Their refusal to bank the money raises an obvious question:
The silver was now again in the hands of the priests and became the occasion for them to crown their other sins with supreme hypocrisy. With legal scrupulosity they could not put it in the treasury because it was the price of blood. But who made it such? Why, they themselves! So they fulfilled the scripture by buying the potter's field.
Who were the "strangers"? One writer quotes Lange, who takes them to be converts from other nations, kept at a distance even in death:
The expression does not refer to Jews from other countries, who in a religious sense were not strangers, nor to open pagans, who were left to themselves. It refers to Gentile converts, to whom a certain regard was due. Yet priestly exclusiveness would not let them rest in properly consecrated graves. So even in this act of cheap charity by a ruling council which killed the Lord of glory, the spirit of the Pharisees stayed true to itself. They judged the price of blood and the field of blood quite suitable for "strangers."
They despised exactly the people God was about to reach:
Having taken counsel, they buy a burying-ground for strangers. These were profane enough in their eyes for that, so long as they themselves were not defiled with such money. Yet it was the time of God's grace to the stranger, and judgment on Israel.
Zechariah had spoken of silver thrown down in God's house and given to the potter. One writer traces both halves of that prophecy:
Messiah, who was the embodiment of all beauty, was priced at thirty pieces of silver. Judas fixed the price and got the silver. In his remorse, before he killed himself, he threw the money down in the temple. That fulfilled the words "in the house of the LORD." The chief priests then took the silver and used it to buy the potter's field, fulfilling the words "I... cast them to the potter."
Matthew credits these words to Jeremiah. One writer gives two possible reasons:
Nothing in Jeremiah matches the words quoted, but there is something similar in Zechariah 11:12-13. Jeremiah is said to have spoken the words. So the reference may be to something he said, and not to what he wrote. Or, since the Jews of old placed Jeremiah at the head of the Book of the Prophets, "Jeremiah" may have served as a heading for the whole.
The graveyard for outsiders turned out to describe the buyers' own future:
Since that time the Gentile world itself has become a potter's field in which to bury Jews scattered as strangers to the ends of the earth. The Jews themselves have in effect bought it with the price of the blood of Christ. God is the great Potter, and by this means He is doing His own work in His people. Israel is, in a figure, dead and buried during the present age, yet a national resurrection is still ahead.
The field later carried the name Aceldama. Of everything connected with the death of Christ, it is what stayed on the map:
They established by it a permanent memorial of their own sin, and of the blood which had been shed. Aceldama is all that remains in this world of the circumstances of this great sacrifice. The world is a field of blood, but it speaks better things than that of Abel.
- Scruple — They kept a rule about the treasury while ignoring the murder they had paid for. Scruples guard the self; conscience answers to God.
- Price — They called the coins blood money without admitting whose hands made them that.
- Strangers — They judged the ground fit only for outsiders. At that very moment God's grace was turning toward outsiders.
- Potter — Zechariah had said the silver would be thrown down in God's house and given to the potter. The buyers fulfilled it while trying to tidy up a crime.
- Memorial — Aceldama is the one landmark left from the cross. The blood it names speaks better things than Abel's.
Wherefore that field has been called Blood-field unto this day.
The betrayal money has come back into the hands of the men who paid it, and they spend it on a graveyard. This verse records the name local people gave that ground. The name stuck, and none of the men involved would have chosen it.
The priests wanted the silver out of sight. What they got was a landmark that told the story to everyone who passed it. One writer ties the name directly to the men who caused it:
The memory of their guilt is in this way kept alive to their own condemnation. And this is a picture of what the people had become — the chief priests as the pattern of what the nation was. That land remains a field of blood to this day — a field for burying strangers. With Israel cast out of their own land, it is left to others, if only to be buried there.
The same men who bought a man's blood refused to bank the change. They kept a rule about the treasury. They felt nothing about the blood:
And notice here the awful way in which conscience can deceive itself. The chief priests took the silver pieces and said, "It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money." Yet they had felt no hesitation about giving that money for that blood. The very same money they had bought Christ with, they will not put into the treasury! What a picture of man's heart and man's consistency! So precise about outward ceremonial points, so unfeeling about moral corruption!
Another writer turns the question back on them. Who made that silver blood money in the first place?
Being so careful about the law, they could not put it in the treasury, because it was blood money. But who made it that? Why, they themselves! So they fulfilled the Scripture by buying the potter's field. Their act became public, and so the field got its name.
The name comes from the local language. And a question sits behind it: who actually bought the field?
The word Aceldama, 'field of blood,' is Aramaic written out in Greek letters. Different manuscripts spell it differently. The field was bought with the money paid to Judas for betraying his Lord. In despair he could not keep it. In that sense he bought the field, Acts 1:18-19; but the chief priests were the ones who actually paid for it, Matt. 27:6-8; compare Zech. 11:12.
Of everything the money could have bought, it bought a burial ground for outsiders. One writer looks at what kind of ground it was:
Eventually it was paid for a potter's field, as had been prophesied. Is there anything more desolate than a field a potter has finished with? Its clay is gone, and burnt cinders and other rubbish lie scattered over it. And what was the field used for? The saddest and most miserable use of all — though perhaps the most useful and necessary use in this world: "a burial place for strangers. Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day." True to character to the very end, even the blood-money of the great Martyr goes to buy a refuge and resting-place for the bodies of wretched foreigners.
Darby sees the priests building their own monument without knowing it. Then he widens the picture from that one field to the whole world:
Having taken counsel, they buy a burial ground for strangers. These were unholy enough in their eyes for that, as long as they themselves were not defiled by such money. Yet it was the time of God's grace to the stranger, and judgment on Israel. What is more, they set up by it a lasting memorial of their own sin, and of the blood which has been shed. Aceldama is all that remains in this world of the circumstances of this great sacrifice. The world is a field of blood, but it speaks better things than that of Abel.
Hole adds that the name is not the last word over that land:
You can see the irony of God's governmental judgment in the name. That land has been a field of blood and a burial place for strangers ever since that day. It will be so on a still larger scale, until the day when the Redeemer at last comes to Zion.
- Money. The priests refused the silver as blood money. The same men had paid it out for that blood without a second thought.
- Motive. Their care was ceremonial, not moral. They were exact about outward rules and unfeeling about corruption. Keeping rules is not the same as having a conscience.
- Monument. What they bought to hide the money became a lasting memorial of their own sin. The name keeps the memory of their guilt alive to their own condemnation.
- Meaning. Aceldama means "field of blood." It was ground for burying strangers, bought with the money paid for the One who was sold. Commentators call it a time of grace to the stranger and judgment on Israel.
- Mercy. Judgment stands over that land, but not for ever. The field of blood "speaks better things" than Abel's blood, and points on to the Redeemer coming to Zion.