How did Judas die? Do the accounts of Judas' death contradict?

Judas probably thought that the Lord would escape from those who arrested Him, as He had escaped from previous dangers, while he would gain the money. When the Lord was condemned, Judas was filled with remorse, confessed he had betrayed innocent blood, and cast the money into the temple. He was a complete dupe of Satan, who first tempted him to gain the money, and then would not let him keep it. He went and hanged himself, and probably falling from the tree, his bowels gushed out. An awful termination of a sinful course. The Lord called him the 'son of perdition.'

In modern times men have erroneously argued that his confession under remorse showed true repentance, and that there is hope of his salvation! but it is not so: he fell 'that he might go to his own place.' It was a trial of man under new circumstances: to be a 'familiar friend' (Ps. 41:9) of the Lord Jesus, to hear His gracious words, see His miracles, and probably be allowed to work miracles himself in His name; and yet, as in every other trial of man, he fell. Judas is a solemn instance of how far a person may be under the influence and power of Christianity, and yet become an apostate: cf. Heb. 6:1-6. He is mentioned in Matt. 10:4; Matt. 26:14-47; Matt. 27:3; Luke 22:3, 47, 48; John 13:2, 26, 29; John 18:2-5; Acts 1:16, 25, etc.

It seems that Judas had thought that the Lord would have no difficulty in delivering Himself from the power of the Sanhedrin, whether by supernatural power (as in Luke 4:30) or by the fact that no charge of evil against Him could possibly be sustained. The unhappy man sees that Jesus is condemned, and power is all on the side of the chief priests and elders. He is smitten with remorse at the thought of how awful his guilt has been. Taking the thirty pieces of silver back to the chief priests and elders, he confessed to them his sin in having betrayed innocent blood. But they show only contempt for him: they have used him: what do they care for him now ?

However, the despairing man shows no repentance of faith. He does not go to the Lord Himself , but evidently going unlawfully into the temple, he threw his money down, then went out to commit suicide by hanging. Peter adds to this (Acts 1:18) that he fell headlong and all his bowels gushed out. The rope by which he hung himself must have broken. Act 1:25 further tells us, "Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place." Solemn end of one who chose to be a deceiver and traitor!

The chief priests, though in moral character unscrupulous, can be most scrupulous in regard to the use of this blood-money. They buy with it the potter's field in which to bury strangers. This refers no doubt to Gentile proselytes, whom the chief priests considered on a lower level than Jews, even though they compassed sea and land to make one proselyte (Ch.23:15). But there is a more ominous prophetic meaning here then they realize. 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. Jews themselves have virtually purchased it with the price of the blood of Christ. God is the great Potter, who is accomplishing His own work in His people by this means, Israel being figuratively dead and buried during the present age, yet in view of a national resurrection.

Peter's addressing the company was based upon Old Testament scriptures, therefore his proposal is evidently correct, for the Spirit of God had not yet come. The scripture must be fulfilled, as he says, concerning Judas, who had been numbered with the apostles, but fell into iniquity, the reward of which purchased a field. Matthew tells us he hanged himself (Ch.27:5): it appears that the rope broke so that he plunged headlong, causing all his bowels to gush out. This was so well known in Jerusalem that the field purchased with the betrayal money was called "the field of blood."

Peter had spoken of the traitor's end, and gave details then known, but not reported elsewhere. He confirmed the information furnished by Matthew, both that a field was bought with the thirty pieces of silver, and also that Judas died a violent death. There is nothing really inconsistent in the two statements about the purchase of the field. For that piece of ground, bought with the money, though the transaction was carried out by the chief priests, as Matthew declares, might be spoken of in the words of Peter: "This man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity." The money with which it was bought really belonged to Judas. Doubtless, had we full details, we should see that the account of both Apostles is correct in every particular. Both speak of the matter as one of common notoriety. And Matthew, who was present when Peter described the end of Judas, must of course have been quite conversant with that which his brother Apostle had stated. Ignorance or mistake on the part of either we cannot admit. Peter spoke of it a few weeks after the occurrence. Matthew, it may be, wrote his Gospel but a few years after the death of Judas, and when all the circumstances of it could not have been forgotten. Both profess perfect acquaintance with the facts they narrate, and write of them as commonly known. A mistake then, we repeat, we cannot admit, unless it could be demonstrated, which is impossible, that we have all the particulars of this sad history. Till that can be satisfactorily established, becoming modesty should make us believe that it is the lack of full particulars which causes any difficulty in harmonising the two accounts. We would add that there is nothing in Peter's statement which obliges us to believe that Judas killed himself on that spot known afterwards as Aceldama; and the name given to the field seems to have arisen from the money being the price of blood (Matt.27:6). [6]

p386 [F G Patterson] MY DEAR BROTHER, - As regards Acts 1:18-19, and Matthew 27:3, &c.; I take Acts 1:18-19 for a parenthesis of Luke's. The passages have been much discussed. The field was looked at as Judas' field, being purchased with his money, as some even say, he having bargained for it, the priests completed it and appropriated it to this purpose: he got a field as the reward of his iniquity, his money being employed for this. We have not details enough to connect the two accounts of his death. Some think, being hung he fell down, and thus the catastrophe took place. But I do not reject your thought of the association of Judas and the priests. The account in Acts supposes he went and fell headlong at first - at once - so that the passage does not imply that he got regular possession by contract himself. It is very possible that "purchased" is too definite; he got a field - with Matthew 27 - is bought, purchased. It was probably some poor waste ground, and Judas having thus gone and hung himself there, they bought it formally and appropriated it to this use. It is supposed he fell down on his face when he hung himself.

So, then, with Judas, whose terrible descent is spoken of here, from his reception of the lot of his apostleship to his suicide in the field of blood, which he had purchased with the price of his iniquity. The apparently discordant accounts as to this purchase have been reconciled in a manner well-known and probable enough. Begun by the traitor, we have only to suppose it closed by the leaders of the people; Judas returning to it to hang himself in his despair, as Matthew relates; the judgment of God ensuing, as related here. That the character of the purchase-money should combine with the horror of his death to give its name of Aceldama to the potter's field, is in no wise difficult to understand.

'And in these days Peter stood up in the midst of the brethren, and said (and there was a crowd of names [or persons] together, about a hundred and twenty), Brethren [lit. Men brethren1] it was needful that the scripture should be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spake before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became guide to those that took Jesus. For he had been numbered among us, and received the allotment of this service. (This [man] then obtained a field from wages of [his] iniquity; and, falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. And it became known to all the dwellers at Jerusalem, so that in their own language that field was called Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood). For it is written in the Book of Psalms, Let his homestead be made desolate, and let there be no dweller in it, and, His overseership let another take. Of the men therefore who went with us at every time that the Lord Jesus went in and went out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day in which He was received up from us, must one of these become2 a witness with us of His resurrection. {1 So also in Acts 2:29, 37; Acts 7:2; Acts 13:15, 26; Acts 15:7, 13; Acts 22:1; Acts 23:1, 6; Acts 28:17. 2 'Be ordained to be' is the unfounded rendering of the A.V.}

As for Judas, the Gospels tell us that he was the one who betrayed Jesus (see Mark 14:10,11,43‑45); and in remorse for what he did, Judas hanged himself (see Matt. 27:5). Judas died at the end of a rope, not on the Cross of Calvary.

Reader, think of this! Here was an apostle — a preacher of the gospel, a high professor. Yet underneath the cloak of profession lay “a heart exercised in covetous practices” — a heart which had a wide place for “thirty pieces of silver,” but not a corner for Jesus. What a case! What a picture! What a warning! Oh! all you heartless professors, think of Judas! Think of his course! Think of his character! Think of his end! He preached the gospel, but he never knew it, never believed it, never felt it. He had painted sunbeams on canvas, but he never felt their influence. He had plenty of heart for money, but no heart for Christ. As “the son of perdition” “he hanged himself” and “went to his own place.” Professing Christians, beware of head-knowledge, lip profession, official piety, mechanical religion. Beware of these things and seek to have a heart for Christ.

(2) A hope seems to have remained or freshly risen in the heart of Christ's betrayer that, after all, He might not be condemned. Perhaps the words here do not convey as much as that, but rather the horror produced by the actual thing when now accomplished, never to be undone. What tales have we of deeds deliberately done, which when done have assumed at once a new shape of terror and dismay, as if never contemplated before. With what different eyes might the traitor have seen the actual condemnation of his Lord and Master from those with which he had looked on to it, however certain. Clearly it is the awful agony of remorse that awakes now in Judas, and not repentance. He cannot keep the money he has gained, to which even for the chief priests the blood-stain indelibly attaches. Nay, he shrieks 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, still less "the Holy and the Righteous One": the glory of the Son of God has no part in it ― neither heals nor even smites him. There is no turning to Him with whom he had companied so long, ― no sense of any one to whom he can turn. There is, in short, no faith, and therefore no repentance. "He cast the silver pieces into the temple" ― practically, the sanctuary, the part proper to the priests alone, ― "and departed and went away and hanged himself." In this we see again the opposite of faith. How many times must he have seen the miraculous deeds which testified that "the Son of man had power on earth to forgive sins"! but he seems to remember nothing of all this, or else cannot believe in the divine mercy toward himself; and thus he plunges headlong into irrecoverable ruin.

(3) So the money is on the hands of those who scruple to defile the treasury with it, though as to their souls they have no such care. But the price of blood they cannot put into the "Corban," among the offerings to Jehovah, and so they take counsel, and buy with it the potter's field ― a special place known as that ― "to bury strangers in." "The expression," says Lange, "does not refer to Jews from other countries (as Meyer supposes), who in a religious point of view were not strangers; nor to professing heathens, who were left to themselves; but to Gentile proselytes (of the gate), to whom a certain regard was due, while priestly exclusiveness would not allow them to rest in properly consecrated graves. Thus even in this act of cheap charity and pious provision on the part of a Sanhedrin which slew the Lord of glory, Phariseeism remained true to itself. The price of blood and the field of blood are declared quite suited for 'strangers.'"

But this is on man's side only; on God's there was surely a witness of what Israel had really acquired for themselves with this fatal blood-money. Had they not in fact purchased for themselves in every land into which they were to be cast "a burial-place for strangers"? Strangers they have indeed been ever since, and their graves how often in a "field of blood:" ― a "potter's field" too, as the quotation here declares; not simply that which lay on the slope of the valley of Hinnom, but the field of the Great Potter of Jer. 18, in which "the word of Jehovah came to me," says the prophet, "saying, O house of Israel, cannot I do with you, as this potter? saith Jehovah. Behold, as the clay in the potter's hand, so are ye in My hand, O house of Israel."