What is the significance of Akeldama in the Bible?

The silver pieces he cast into the temple and the priests, as covetous as Judas, stoop down to pick them up. That which follows is only reported in this Gospel, in the other Gospel records no mention is made of the fate of Judas. It is put only in the Gospel of Matthew on account of its dispensational bearing. The priests judge very religiously that it is not lawful to put the money into the Corban, the treasury of the temple. They decide to buy with the pieces of silver, the field of the potter for a burying ground for strangers. This was in partial fulfillment of what was spoken by Jeremias. The full prophecy is found in Zechariah, but the Spirit calls here attention to what is also spoken by Jeremias. We read in that book (Chapters 17 and 19) of a potter's field, which was situated on the side of the valley of Hinnom. That valley is also called "Tophet", a fearful type with its awful memories of Gehenna. Perhaps there, Judas had ended his earthly existence, and after hanging himself had fallen down, and burst asunder. This potter's field was bought with the blood money.

"By a fiction of law the money was still considered to be Judas', and to have been applied by him in the purchase of that potter's field, for the charitable purpose of burying in it strangers. But from henceforth the name of potter's field, became popularly changed into that of "field of blood." And yet it was the act of Israel through its leaders. It was all theirs, though they would have fain made it all Judas': the valuing, the selling and the purchasing. And "the potter's field", the very spot on which Jeremiah had been divinely directed to prophecy against Jerusalem and against Israel, how was it now all fulfilled in the light of the completed sin and apostasy of the people, as prophetically described by Zechariah! This Tophet of Jeremiah, now that they had valued and sold at thirty shekels Israel 's Messiah-Shepherd -- truly a Tophet, and become a field of blood! Surely not an accidental coincidence this, that it should be the place of Jeremiah's announcement of judgment, not accidental, but veritably a fulfillment of this prophecy. (Edersheim Life and Times of the Messiah.)

Prophetically all is a foreshadowing of what was to happen to Israel and Israel 's land on account of the bloodguiltiness, which they took upon themselves. Israel 's land becoming "a burying place for strangers" and Israel scattered among the nations, finding their graves in Haqal Dama, a field of blood.

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.

The field was then called "the field of blood," a solemn testimony to the blood-guiltiness of Israel in reference to their Messiah! As to this, Jeremiah's prophecy is said to be fulfilled, which speaks, not only of Judas, but of Israel estimating their Messiah's value at thirty pieces of silver. But in exchange they have themselves received the potter's field, the field of blood! This was by the appointment of Jehovah, in sovereign, righteous government.

For instance, he is the only evangelist who notices the word of the prophet about the potter's field. That field was bought with the price of the Lord's blood, and it was made the place to bury strangers in. And this had a meaning for Israel, with whom Matthew has to do. Judas's act was Israel's act. He was guide to those who took Jesus. Acts 1:16. It was they who with wicked hands crucified and slew Him, as the apostle tells them, and their land is "Aceldama" to this day. Joel 3:21. It is the field of blood, and the grave of aliens. It is a defiled land, and Gentiles have it in possession.

After this (Matt. 27), the unhappy priests and heads of the people deliver up their Messiah to the Gentiles, as He had told His disciples. Judas, in despair under Satan's power, hangs himself, having cast the reward of his iniquity at the feet of the chief priests and elders. Satan was forced to bear witness, even by a conscience that he had betrayed, to the Lord's innocence. What a scene! Then the priests, who had made no conscience of buying His blood from Judas, scruple to put the money into the treasury of the temple, because it was the price of blood. In the presence of that which was going on, man was obliged to show himself as he is and the power of Satan over him. Having taken counsel, they buy a burying-ground for strangers. These were profane enough in their eyes for that, provided they themselves were not defiled with such money. Yet it was the time of God's grace to the stranger, and judgment on Israel. Moreover they established thereby a perpetual 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.

Judas never profited by his thirty pieces of silver. Seduced and ultimately possessed by the devil, he threw away everything for nothing. That is always the end of the story when silly little men attempt to drive a bargain with the giant spirit of evil. 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. Their act became public, and thus the field acquired its name. The irony of Divine governmental judgment can be discerned in the name, for that land has been a field of blood and a burial place for strangers ever since that day; and will be yet in larger measure, and until the day when at last the Redeemer shall come to Zion.

The word Ἀκελδαμα, 'field of blood,' is Aramaic expressed in Greek letters, the word being differently spelt in different MSS. The field was bought with the money paid to Judas for betraying his Lord but which he in despair could not keep. In that sense he bought the field, Acts 1:18-19; whereas it was really purchased by the chief priests, Matt. 27:6-8; cf. Zech. 11:12. The traditional spot is on the slope of the hill south of Jerusalem, where there is a ruined structure, long used as a charnel-house. It is some 20 feet deep, with a few decaying bones at the bottom. Tradition says that the bodies were thrown into it, and that the soil possessed the power to consume them in 24 hours. Shiploads of the earth were carried away to form European burial grounds in the time of the Crusades. The soil cretaceous would favour the decomposition of the bodies.

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.

How like the people who bought Aceldama with the blood of Christ — "the potter's field to bury strangers in"! for the whole earth has been to them since then a strangers' burial-ground. As a vessel marred upon the wheel, they have been witnesses for Him in their rejection that they are but as clay in the hands of Him against whom they have sinned.

"And the chief priests took the silver pieces," etc. Conscience would have told them that theirs was the guilt of bribing Judas to betray Jesus, 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. They said, "It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood." Here was religion; but where was conscience in giving the money for Jesus? "And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day" (vers. 7, 8). The memory of their guilt is thus perpetuated 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. A field of blood that land remains to this day; a field "to bury strangers in." Israel being cast out of their own land, it is left to others, if only to be buried there.*

Consider for a moment what became of the money for which our Lord was sold. The traitor could not keep nor use it: it blistered his hands, and he threw it back to the priests; but their piety prevented their taking it. Eventually it was paid for a potter's field, as had been prophesied. Now is there anything more desolate than a field — robbed of its clay, and strewn with calcined cinders and other refuse — which a potter has done with? And to what purpose was the field put? The most miserable and melancholy of all, though perhaps in this world the most useful and necessary of all — "to bury strangers in! Therefore that field was called the Field of Blood unto this day." Characteristically to the last, even the blood-money of the great Martyr goes to buy a refuge and resting-place for the bodies of wretched aliens. Oh, can there be a more pathetic connection of thought in all the long eternity, past or future, than the thought of the dead Benefactor hanging on that rude cross, with His thorn-crowned head sunken on His breast, and the desolate burying-ground for nameless paupers that was purchased by the price of His betrayal!