TEXT [Commentary]

J. The Suicide of Judas (27:1-10)

1 Very early in the morning the leading priests and the elders of the people met again to lay plans for putting Jesus to death. 2 Then they bound him, led him away, and took him to Pilate, the Roman governor.

3 When Judas, who had betrayed him, realized that Jesus had been condemned to die, he was filled with remorse. So he took the thirty pieces of silver back to the leading priests and the elders. 4 “I have sinned,” he declared, “for I have betrayed an innocent man.”

“What do we care?” they retorted. “That’s your problem.”

5 Then Judas threw the silver coins down in the Temple and went out and hanged himself.

6 The leading priests picked up the coins. “It wouldn’t be right to put this money in the Temple treasury,” they said, “since it was payment for murder.”[*] 7 After some discussion they finally decided to buy the potter’s field, and they made it into a cemetery for foreigners. 8 That is why the field is still called the Field of Blood. 9 This fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah that says,

“They took[*] the thirty pieces of silver—

the price at which he was valued by the people of Israel,

10 and purchased the potter’s field,

as the LORD directed.[*]”

NOTES

27:1-2 met again to lay plans. After the night hearing, the leaders “lay plans” (12:14; 22:15; 27:7; 28:12) in the morning (cf. 26:20) to transfer Jesus to the jurisdiction of Pilate (cf. Mark 15:1; Luke 22:66–23:1; John 18:28), evidently because only the Roman governor had authority to order executions (John 18:31; Brown 1994:363-372). The NLT’s “met again” indicates that these events occurred later at a second meeting, but this is doubtful. Perhaps the reference to the formal decision in the morning should be viewed in light of m. Sanhedrin 4:1 which says that decisions in capital cases must be reached in the daytime (cf. Blomberg 1987:136-138).

took him to Pilate, the Roman governor. In 20:18-19, Jesus predicted that the religious leaders would hand him over to the Gentiles. This prediction is now fulfilled. Pilate served from AD 26–36 as one in a series of Roman governors (technically procurators or prefects) of Judea (cf. Luke 3:1;13:1; Acts 4:27; 1 Tim 6:13). He is viewed in a very bad light in extra-biblical sources, which portray him as insecure, insensitive to the Jews, and extremely harsh in the administration of justice (Josephus Antiquities 18.35, 55-62, 85-89; War 2.169-177; Philo The Embassy to Gaius 299-305; Tacitus Annals 15.44). (See Evans and Porter 2000:804 for a discussion of the inscription mentioning Pilate as prefect, which was discovered at Caesarea Maritima in 1961.)

27:3-4 Matthew inserts his unique narrative of Judas’s suicide (cf. Acts 1:16-20; 2 Sam 17:23) between the Jewish (26:57-68; 27:1-2) and Roman (27:11-26) stages of Jesus’ trial. It is difficult to establish the chronological relationship of Judas’s remorse and suicide to the rest of the events in the chapter. The remorse was due to Jesus’ being condemned, which may refer to Pilate’s later decision. Or perhaps Judas was one of the bystanders in Caiaphas’ courtyard and learned there that the Sanhedrin had condemned Jesus. In any event, the religious leaders in this passage had the time to receive Judas, which implies that they were no longer involved with Pilate (27:12, 20).

he was filled with remorse. It is difficult to understand why Judas felt remorse when Jesus had been condemned, since it seems obvious that this would be the result of the betrayal. Some commentators stress that the word used to express Judas’s remorse is metamelomai [TG3338, ZG3564] (cf. 21:30, 32; 2 Cor 7:8; Heb 7:21), not metanoeō [TG3340, ZG3566] (cf. 3:2, 8, 11; 4:17; 11:20-21; 12:41), the word most often used for genuine repentance. Judas’s subsequent actions, however, give us more insight into the state of his heart than the choice of Gr. vocabulary here.

he took the thirty pieces of silver back. Judas returned the thirty pieces of silver to the religious leaders and confessed his sin to them (Deut 27:25), but they harshly rebuffed him without care. They told him that his sin was his own problem (cf. 27:24), and they would have nothing to do with him.

27:5 Judas threw the silver coins down in the Temple. His action of throwing the money down in the Temple underlines his remorse and admission of guilt, but at this point it was too late to help Jesus.

hanged himself. Judas had found no peace of mind from his conversation with the religious leaders, so he chose suicide by hanging as a way of dealing with his guilt (cf. 2 Sam 17:23; m. Sanhedrin 10:2).

27:6-7 It would be illegal to put this money in the Temple treasury. The scrupulousness of the religious leaders regarding the disposal of Judas’ money is amazing, given their indifference to such matters as seeking false witnesses against Jesus and even to Judas’ personal anguish. While they were concerned about ritual purity, they were oblivious to their blatant violation of the fundamental ethics of the Torah. This is a blatant illustration of Jesus’ point in 23:23—attention to trivial details has superseded the weightier matters of the law.

since it was payment for murder. This could make it sound like Judas was an assassin, not a traitor. The expression is lit. “it is the price of blood” (cf. NLT mg).

foreigners. This may refer to Jews who came to Jerusalem for religious festivals and died there.

27:8 Field of Blood. The field purchased by the priests was still called the Field of Blood when Matthew later wrote.

27:9-10 This fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah. The pathetic end of Judas and the purchase of the burial field was seen by Matthew as a fulfillment of Scripture. Matthew referred primarily to Zech 11:12-13, though the additional allusion to Jer 19:1-13 (and possibly Jer 18:2; 32:6-9) led him to refer the prophecy to Jeremiah. Blomberg (1992:409) and Gundry (1994:557-558) seem to be correct in pointing out that in addition to Zech 11:12-13, several features of Jer 19:1-13 are viewed by Matthew as typological, providing a pattern that is reenacted by the leading priests. It is not unusual for OT citations to be a combination of two or more texts (Davies and Allison 1997:568-569). This is the final “fulfillment formula” citation in Matthew. Some view this passage as having a redemptive meaning, in that the blood money goes for the burial of strangers or foreigners (cf. 25:35), signifying the extention of salvation to the Gentiles (Bruner 1990:1023). This, however, seems to read too much into the text. Others think that Matthew composed a non-historical story in 27:3-10 as a midrash (commentary) on Zech 11:12-13. If that were the case, one would have expected much closer correspondence between the story and Zechariah. It is better understood that Matthew noticed the similarities between his historical tradition and Zech 11 (Hagner 1995:811), and so he viewed Zechariah typologically. He saw in Jer 19 and Zech 11 “a pattern of apostasy and rejection that must find its ultimate fulfillment in the rejection of Jesus” (Carson 1984:566). And with this notion of prophetic fulfillment comes once again the implicit corollary of divine sovereignty.

COMMENTARY [Text]

Matthew 27:1-10 begins with the continuation of the trial story of 26:57-68, which was suspended by the story of Peter’s denials (26:69-75). After 27:1-2, the subject changes to the story of Judas’ suicide (27:3-8), which was viewed by Matthew as a fulfillment of prophecy (27:9-10). Matthew’s pattern throughout the passion narrative has been to interweave stories about supporting characters and issues (26:6-13, 20-35; 27:3-10) into the main story of the sufferings of Jesus. In 27:9-10, Matthew’s characteristic typological understanding of the Old Testament, expressed with a fulfillment formula, occurs for the last time. Matthew apparently understood the shepherd doomed to slaughter in Zechariah 13:7 as corresponding to Jesus and the thirty pieces of silver thrown to the potter in the Lord’s house in Zechariah 11:13 as corresponding to the money Judas threw down in the Temple being used to buy potter’s field. Matthew did not make up this story to fit Zechariah but read the prophets with a view to finding patterns in which an Old Testament person or event anticipated something in the life and ministry of Jesus.

Judas’ Betrayal and Peter’s Denial. As noted in the commentary on 26:69-75, it is instructive to compare and contrast the remorse of Peter after his temporary lapse with that of Judas after his act of ultimate treachery. Both acts were no doubt despicable, but Peter’s denial pales in comparison with Judas’s act. Peter returned to a life of following Jesus and was restored to his special office in the church (28:18-20; John 21:15-17). To mention his prominent ministry in the early church is to belabor the obvious. The remorse of Judas, however, does not amount to anything approaching genuine repentance unto salvation. This is clear not so much from the use of metamelomai [TG3338, ZG3564] in 27:3 (see notes above) as from the ensuing events. Granted, Judas acknowledged his sin and returned his blood money. Davies and Allison (1997:562, 565, 571) make much of this in their overly sympathetic portrayal of Judas, but he never attempted to seek Jesus’ forgiveness or rejoin the disciples. His suicide is an indication of hopeless despair, not repentance. In Matthew repentance is shown by works, portrayed as fruit (3:8-10; 7:16-20; 13:38-40). Judas is remembered for his suicide, probably viewed as a violation of the sixth commandment (Exod 20:13; cf. Genesis Rabbah on 9:5; b. Avodah Zarah 18a; Tractate Semahot 2:1-2; but see Davies and Allison 1997:561-563). In view of such texts as Matthew 26:24 and John 6:70; 17:12, one may not hope that he was saved. Rather, one must be warned because he was lost.