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.
Then was fulfilled that which was spoken through Jeremias the prophet, saying, And I took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was set a price on, whom [they who were] of the sons of Israel had set a price on,
Matthew pauses the story to say that the blood money paid for Jesus fulfilled an old prophecy. That raises two questions: why does he name Jeremiah when the words sit in Zechariah, and what does the price say about how Israel rated its Messiah?
The amount was not random. It came straight from Israel's own law book, where it settles the compensation owed for a servant killed by an ox.
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. He looked for love and did not find it. Love was refused to Him. Instead He was insulted, mocked, and treated like a miserable slave.
The way they reached that figure sharpens the insult.
It was a sober business transaction, and in that lies its bitter contempt — it was undesigned. They thought Him a wicked man, but even so, not worth more than a few shekels' reward... We often see twenty times as much offered for the capture of some common criminal. This was a long time ago. Yes, but there are millions of people around us who would not give up even that much to have Christ now.
Matthew does not lay the price on Judas alone. He says that some of the sons of Israel set the price on Him. In Zechariah the Lord Himself speaks of that price, and one writer shows how the two accounts fit.
In Zechariah it is "I said to them," whereas in Matthew it is Judas who speaks to the chief priests, the representatives of the nation. This brings out a very interesting principle in the ways of God. It was Judas' sin that betrayed the Lord. But Jehovah used the sin of Judas to test the chief priests, to see what they thought Christ was worth. So He passes over the go-between and says, "I said to them, If you think good, give me my price."
So who owned the guilt for that price?
And yet it was the act of Israel through its leaders. It was all theirs, though they would have liked to make it all Judas': the valuing, the selling and the buying.
The words match Zechariah 11:12-13, not anything in the book of Jeremiah. Commentators differ on how to explain the name, and one writer sets the options side by side.
Nothing in Jeremiah matches the words quoted, but there is something similar in Zechariah 11:12-13. The text says Jeremiah spoke the words. So the reference may be to something he said, and not to what he wrote. Another explanation is this. The Jews of old placed Jeremiah at the start of the Book of the Prophets, with Ezekiel, Isaiah and the twelve shorter prophets following. So 'Jeremiah' may have been a heading for the whole collection. Zechariah is quoted in the New Testament, but he is never named there.
One writer points to an unexpected witness: an opponent of Matthew who found no fault here.
R. Isaac Chizzuk Emuna, a Jewish scholar, attacked Matthew's credit with determination, yet he raised no objection to the use of Jeremiah's name instead of Zechariah's here. It is almost incredible that he could have overlooked so obvious an oddity if he had thought it a fault. The fair conclusion seems to be that this learned Jew knew such a way of quoting was even more Jewish in style — and so more fitting in Matthew — than naming the exact prophet.
That money went on to buy a burial ground for strangers. The field became a sign of what Israel itself would become.
Had they not in fact bought for themselves, in every land into which they were to be scattered, "a burial place for strangers"? Strangers they have indeed been ever since. How often their graves have been in a "field of blood" — and in a "potter's field" too, as the quotation here declares. Not just the field on the slope of the valley of Hinnom, but the field of the great Potter of Jeremiah 18.
- Price — thirty pieces of silver was the legal payment for a dead slave. That is what they judged the Lord to be worth.
- Purchase — the guilt was not Judas' alone. The valuing, the selling and the buying were Israel's own act through its leaders.
- Prophet — the wording matches Zechariah. Writers explain the name Jeremiah in different ways: words he spoke rather than wrote, Jeremiah standing at the head of the prophetic scrolls, or a Jewish way of citing by the leading prophet.
- Potter — that money bought a field, and the field became a picture of a nation scattered and buried among strangers.
- Purpose — God was still at work in it. He used Judas' sin to test the leaders and expose what they thought Christ was worth.
and they gave them for the field of the potter, according as [the] Lord commanded me.
The blood money lies on the table, and the priests are hunting for a legal way to spend it. Matthew stops the story to say this fulfilled prophecy — which raises two questions: how did their guilt fulfil God's word, and why does he name Jeremiah?
The men handling the money were not trying to obey Scripture. They fussed over religious detail while committing murder.
That meant nothing to religious leaders. They had no scruples about betrayal, bribing false witnesses and murder. Yet they could still be religious about how the money was handled. As the price of blood it was not fit for the treasury, so it could buy a field to bury strangers in. And so they were fulfilling prophecy.
In the prophecy God does not name the men who handled the silver.
Notice again that the Lord passes over all the human means by which this prediction was carried out. In the Gospel we find that Judas cast the pieces of silver down in the temple, and that the chief priests bought the potter's field with them. Both alike were only instruments in the Lord's hands, even while they acted on the promptings of their own evil hearts, and so both actions are tied here to the prophet's words.
One woman's gift had shown what she thought Jesus was worth. The priests named their own figure.
If a believing woman showed what she thought Jesus was worth — so wasteful, in the eyes of unbelief that weighs everything by usefulness — what was His value in the eyes of the bribing priests and of the betrayer? … A slave's price was enough for the despised Lord of all!
The sting is that no one was trying to insult Him. They simply named what they thought He was worth.
It was a plain business deal, and that is where its bitter contempt lies: the insult was not even meant. They thought Him a wicked man. But even so, not worth more than a few shekels' reward… We often see twenty times as much offered for the capture of some common criminal. This was a long time ago. Yes, but there are millions of people around us who would not give up even that much to have Christ now.
The quoted words stand in Zechariah 11, yet Matthew names Jeremiah. Commentators differ on why, but they agree a careless mistake is not the answer.
The difficulty comes from the Jewish way of citing Scripture. The claim that Matthew did not know the plain fact that the passage he used is in Zechariah is absurd even on human grounds. The writer of this Gospel uses the Old Testament with great depth and accuracy all the way through. He cannot reasonably be charged with a blunder that would shame an intelligent Sunday-school pupil.
One line of explanation rests on Matthew's exact wording — spoken, not written.
Notice that Matthew 27 does not say it was written by Jeremiah; it says it was spoken by Jeremiah. Is there anything in Jeremiah that can be linked with this prophecy? In Jeremiah we do find a similar action by the prophet, matching Zechariah 11:13… His name appears in Matthew's Gospel to point out that Jeremiah also spoke of the same event: the rejection of the true Shepherd.
The deal looked like tidy paperwork. It left a landmark.
They bought a burying-ground for strangers. In their eyes strangers were unclean enough 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, by doing this they set up a lasting memorial of their own sin, and of the blood that has been shed… The world is a field of blood, but it speaks better things than that of Abel.
The closing words hand the whole deal back to God.
Here Jeremiah's prophecy is said to be fulfilled. It speaks not only of Judas, but of Israel valuing their Messiah at thirty pieces of silver. But in exchange they have received for themselves the potter's field, the field of blood! This was by the appointment of Jehovah, in sovereign, righteous government.
The potter's image carries more than judgment. A potter does not throw spoiled clay away.
They had indeed cast this money to the potter, and ever since they have been like a vessel spoiled on the wheel, waiting to be re-moulded. This is the meaning of their discipline through all the long years since.
- Price — A slave's price was enough for the Lord of all. Thirty pieces of silver was their calm, settled estimate of Him.
- Purchase — Careful about the treasury, careless about blood. The leaders bought a field and built a lasting memorial of their own sin.
- Prophet — Naming Jeremiah is not a slip. Explanations differ, but Matthew says spoken, not written, and he handles the Old Testament with care everywhere else.
- Purpose — The prophecy passes over the human hands. Judas and the priests were only instruments in the Lord's hands.
- Potter — The field was bought "as the Lord directed": righteous judgment, yet spoiled clay is kept for re-moulding.