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.