Mat 26:14

. Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot. Christ’s admonition was so far from being of any avail for softening the heart of Judas, or producing any change in it for the better, that he immediately went away, without any concern, to transact an infamous bargain with his enemies. It was amazing and prodigious stupidity, that he considered himself to have found, in the expense of the ointment, a fair excuse for so heinous a crime; and next, that, after having been warned by the words of Christ, he did not perceive what he was doing. (180) The bare mention of the burying ought to have softened a heart of iron; for it would have been easy to infer from it, that Christ offered himself as a sacrifice for the salvation of the human race. But we see in this mirror how great is the blindness of wicked desires, and how powerfully they fascinate the mind. Judas was inflamed with the desire to steal; long practice had hardened him in wickedness; and now when he meets with no other prey, he does not scruple to betray basely to death the Son of God, the Author of life, and, though restrained by a holy admonition, rushes violently forward.

With good reason, therefore, does Luke expressly say that Satan entered into him; not that the Spirit of God formerly directed him, for he would not have been addicted to theft and robbery, if he had not been the slave of Satan. But Luke means, that he was at that time wholly given up to Satan, so that, like a desperate man, he violently sought his destruction. For though Satan drives us every day to crimes, and reigns in us, when he hurries us into a course of extraordinary wickedness; yet he is said to enter into the reprobate, when he takes possession of all their senses, overthrows the fear of God, extinguishes the light of reason, and destroys every feeling of shame. This extremity of vengeance God does not execute on any but those who are already devoted to destruction. Let us therefore learn to repent early, lest our long-continued harshness should confirm the reign of Satan within us; for as soon as we have been abandoned to this tyranny, his rage will have no bounds. It is particularly worthy of notice, that the cause and source of so great blindness in Judas was avarice, which makes it evident that it is justly denominated by Paul the root of all evils, (1Ti 6:10.) To inquire here whether or not Satan entered into Judas bodily is an idle speculation. We ought rather to consider how fearfully monstrous it is, that men formed after the image of God, and appointed to be temples for the Holy Spirit, should not only be turned into filthy stables or sinks, but should become the wretched abodes of Satan.

(180) “ Que c’estoit qu’il alloit faire;” — “what he was going to do.”

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

CRITICAL NOTES

Mat. 26:15. Covenanted with him.Weighed unto him (R.V.). After the old custom. There had been in the land a coined shekel since the time of Simeon, 143 B.C.; but weighing seems to have still been customary in the temple treasury (Meyer). Or weighed may be simply equivalent to paid. Thirty pieces of silver.I.e. thirty silver shekels. G. C. Williamson, D.Lit., in The Money of the Bible, says, In the time of our Lord there were no shekels current (save, perhaps, a few of the old ones), although money was reckoned in shekels, very much as in the present day reckonings are made in guineas, although no coin of the value of a guinea is in use. Judas may have been paid in Syrian or Phnician tetradrachms, which were of the same weight (Madden). A shekel was between two and three shillings sterling. Perhaps this was but an earnest of a larger sum.

Mat. 26:17. The first day of the feast of unleavened bread.The feast of omitted in R.V. The 14th of Nisan, which commenced after sunset on the 13th. Dr. Edersheim says: Properly speaking, these two [the Passover and Feast of unleavened bread] are quite distinct, the Passover taking place on the 14th of Nisan, and the Feast of unleavened bread commencing on the 15th, and lasting for seven days, to the 21st of the month. But from their close connection they are generally treated as one, both in the Old and in the New Testament; and Josephus, on one occasion, even describes it as a feast for eight days.

Mat. 26:18. To such a man.The Greek word is that used when the writer knows, but does not care to mention, the name of the man referred to (Plumptre). The Master saith.Therefore the host in question was a disciple, but not one of the Twelve (Bengel). My time is at hand.For the disciples the time may have seemed the long-expected season of His manifesting Himself as King (Plumptre). I will keep.I keep (R. V.). The arrangements had been previously made. It was usual for the inhabitants of Jerusalem to lend guest-chambers to the strangers who came to the feast (Carr).

Mat. 26:20. He sat down with the Twelve.See R.V: sitting = reclining. The Paschal ceremonial, so far as it bears on the Gospel narrative, may be described as follows:(a) The meal began with a cup of red wine mixed with water: this is the first cup mentioned, Luk. 22:17. After this the guests washed their hands. Here probably must be placed the washing of the disciples feet (John 13). (b) The bitter herbs, symbolic of the bitter bondage in Egypt, were then brought in, together with unleavened cakes, and a sauce called charoseth, made of fruits and vinegar, into which the unleavened bread and bitter herbs were dipped. This explains Joh. 13:26. (c) The second cup was then mixed and blessed like the first. The father then explained the meaning of the rite (Exo. 13:8). The first part of the hallel (Psalms 113, 114) was then chanted by the company, (d) After this the paschal lamb was placed before the guests. This is called in a special sense the supper. But at the Last Supper there was no paschal lamb. There was no need now of the typical lamb without blemish, for the antitype was there (1Co. 5:7). At this point, when, according to the ordinary ritual, the company partook of the paschal lamb, Jesus took bread and blessed it, and gave it to His disciples (Mat. 26:26). (e) The third cup, or cup of blessing, so called because a special blessing was pronounced upon it, followed: after supper He took the cup (Luke). He took the cup when He had supped (Paul). This is the cup named in Mat. 26:27. (f) After the fourth cup the company chanted (see Mat. 26:30) the second part of the hallel (Psalms 115-118) (Carr.).

Mat. 26:25. Thou hast said.A Hebrew form of affirmation.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Mat. 26:14-25

The guilt of betrayal.This portion of Scripture begins (Mat. 26:14-16), and concludes (Mat. 26:23-25) with the mention of Judas Iscariot. Also in the middle (in Mat. 26:21) our Saviour has him in mind. We may rightly, therefore, use the whole passage as turning on Judas, and serving to show us the true nature of that which he did. It does so, in particular, by showing us, first, how much evil his purpose involved; and, secondly, how many obstacles his pertinacity overcame.

I. The evil involved.What utter treachery, to begin. Judas Iscariot, which also betrayed Him. That is the first note in the case. Treachery towards One who had favoured him much. This Judas, it is also noted, was one of the Twelve (Mat. 26:14). One of those, i.e., who had been admitted to the special intimacy of the Man he betrayed. But for this honour he could notas, but for his falseness, he would nothave done that which he did. Treachery also towards One who had trusted him much; in one respect, apparently (Joh. 12:6), the most of the Twelve. Twofold, therefore, was the treachery of which he was guilty. He was false to kindness, and false to confidence too. Wholly spontaneous also, in the next place, his treachery seems to have been. It does not appear, from what we are told, that temptation assaulted him, as it were. It rather appears that he went after it, and sought it himself. He went to the priests, it is said (Mat. 26:14). Probably the idea of the Saviour being betrayed by one of His disciples had never occurred to them as a possible thing. And therefore, it was, probably, that they had never thought of making any attempt in that line. Probably, also, this accounts for the peculiar satisfaction (Mar. 14:11) with which they seemed to have welcomed the communication of Judas. Who would ever have thought of our receiving such an offer as this? Certain it is that his treachery, next, was of a very wanton description. It was not as though he had been influenced by the prospect of making any great gain by his baseness. Merely, it is said, the price of a slave (see also Zec. 11:13)a sum about large enough to purchase a plot of ground of which all the value appears to have gone, and which only afterwards could be turned to use in the way of contempt (Mat. 27:7)was all he looked for from his sin. Yet, last and worst, his resolve to commit it was of the most deliberate kind. This wretched bribe was his ruling thoughtthe thing he longed forthe thing he lived forat that time. What a picture we have in Mat. 26:16 of one bent upon evil! Happen what may, and come what might, so far as he is concerned, this consummate wrong shall be done.

II. The obstacles overcome.In the case of this sin, as of so many others, there was nothing less than a whole array and succession of influences, which ought to have told in the opposite line. The holiness of that special season was one thing of this kind. Was the Passover (Mat. 26:17), the great feast of the year, a time for such deeds? Was such a Passover, also, of all Passovers (see Mat. 26:18), a time for such deeds? How vividly, also, at that feast itself, were the claims of the intimacy to which the Saviour had admitted Judas brought home to his notice! He was at the same tablehe was partaking of the same foodhe was doing so at the same timewith his Benefactor (Mat. 26:23). What was he about to take with that same hand with which he had just taken that sop? Was there not something in such a thought which should have made him draw back? Also, at that supper, in its general sorrow, and in that which produced it, was there not much which ought to have been of an equally adversative kind? Verily I say unto you, the Saviour says to all, that one of you shall betray Me. The very suggestion is too much for every one else. Every one else is exceeding sorrowful at the very idea. Every one else can think of nothing worse as being possible for himself (Mat. 26:22). What an object-lesson, therefore, as to the enormity of his sin for Judas himself. In the intensity of their grief, he could see what they all thought of that which he was secretly thinking of doing. If they had all known it, and stood up and adjured him with tears not to think of doing so, they could not, virtually, have said any more. And, lastly, there was the special grief of the Master Himself. What a burst of sorrow was His! How significant its directionover Judas himself! How equally significant the time of its expressioneven when inexpressible suffering was approaching Himself! How beyond description its depthgood were it for that man if he had not been born (Mat. 26:24)! Can any one imagine a stronger appeal, whether to love or to fear?

How exceedingly great, therefore, we see, in conclusion, is the deceitfulness of sin! What was it that this unhappy man promised himself by his sin? For which he condescended to such baseness? For which he gave up so much? For which he rushed over such obstacles? For which he resisted such appeals? For which he lost his all? What strikes one so much, on this side of the question, is the amazing folly of sin! How it blinds men to truthto affectionto honourto all but itself! See such passages as Mat. 13:22; Heb. 3:13; Isa. 44:20, etc., etc. Hence the wisdom of that prayer of the Psalmists (Psa. 119:37), and of the advice given us in Heb. 12:2, to look off unto Jesus. The only safety against that which thus bewitches men in the wrong direction, is to fix the attention on that which fascinates in the right.

HOMILIES ON THE VERSES

Mat. 26:14-16. Judas the covetous.This incident reveals Judas Iscariot. If he had intended to compel Christ to commit Himself, and begin at once His kingdom, the very last thing he could have thought of would be making money for himself out of such a transaction. We should divest our minds altogether of the idea that the case of Judas was an exceptional one. We are warranted in looking at Judas exactly as we look at any other man. He had to be exposed to temptation, but was capable of resistance. He was liable to err, to falter, to fall, but there was provided for him adequate and opportune help. Notice:

I. A strand of weakness in his natural disposition.The question set before each one of us is this: What can you become under the burden of your particular bias and disability? Some men are inclined to pride, some to sensualities, some to drink, and some to covetousness. The strand of weakness in Judas was the love of money. We are as gardens filled with various seeds, of weeds and of flowers. We can nourish the weeds, if we please. But we can cut down their growths and pluck them out if we will. Judas nourished the weed.

II. A dividing line in his history.And there is such a line in every personal history. A time when it is settled whether the evil or the good is to be the stronger force in the life. It may be difficult to fix such a time in the case of Judas, and yet many think they find it in connection with our Lords very spiritual address on the Living Bread (John 6.). At the close of that address, the Evangelist brings Judas in. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray Him. That day many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him; and it is not unreasonable to assume that, though Judas did not then break away from the apostolic company, the conviction then came to him that all his hopes were doomed to disappointment, and Jesus was no such Messiah as he had desired. Let us not fail to observe that Christs efforts to spiritualise the thoughts and ideas of the Apostles might have influenced Judas, as they did influence the others. They would have done so, but for the self-seeking, and money-loving, which made him insincere, and turned him into the clay which the warm, life-giving sunshine can but harden.

III. The motives of the betrayal.He was disappointed in the thing that had grown to be the ruling power in his naturehis love of money; and the disappointed man only too easily can become the revengeful man. Such a man only awakens to behold himself when the consequences of his ill-doing are fully before him. Then such a man may feel remorsehe will not rise to healthy repentance. Judas let money rule him, and money brought him down to a woe unspeakable.Weekly Pulpit.

Mat. 26:17. Preparation for the Passover.

1. It is commendable to remember Gods ordinances in due time, and to prepare for them.
2. Our Lord made Himself so poor that He had not a house of His own, albeit He was Owner of all the earth.
3. Our Lord subjected Himself unto the law, and did keep exactly both the moral and ceremonial law, that He might deliver us from the yoke of the one, and from the curse for breaking of the other
4. The terms of sacramental speech were well understood by Christs disciples, as to put the thing signified for the sign; by this phrase, to eat the passover, they mean to eat the lamb, the sacramental memorial of the angels passing over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt.David Dickson.

Mat. 26:18-19. A worthy man for so holy a service.

1. The Lord will not want friends, wheresoever He is. Here in Jerusalem He hath friends, as He had also in Bethany.
2. He hath such control of the spirits of men, as He can bow their will to do what service He pleaseth.
3. Christ hath taken on Him to be our Teacher and to Him only the dignity of Master is due; therefore He calleth Himself the Master.
4. It is of His own free choice that our Lord doth employ any man more than another.
5. The more near our time to depart this life doth draw, the more careful should we be to have all things done by us which should be done; therefore saith He, My time is at hand, I will keep the Passover.
6. It is the part of true disciples to follow Christs direction in all things, and, being clear in the command, to go about the obedience of it.Ibid.

Mat. 26:20. Christ sitting with the Twelve.

1. Neither is the sacrament the worse, nor are the communicants polluted, albeit an undiscovered hypocrite be in company with them at the Lords Table.
2. The Lord will not discover hypocrites till they by their own deed discover themselves, but will suffer them to lurk among the saints, till His own time come; as here He suffereth Judas to lurk and to eat the Passover.
3. Social sitting at table is a very fit posture for a religious feast.Ibid.

The positive and the permanent.God had commanded the attitude of standing in the reception of the paschal meal: the Jewish church having come to the land of promise, and being there at rest, reclined at the festival, and our Lord conformed to that practicea proof that positive commands of a ceremonial kind, even of Divine origin, are not immutable, if they are not in order to a permanent end.C. Wordsworth, D.D.

Mat. 26:21-22. Our Lord forewarning His disciples.

1. It is possible that a man may come to the Lords Table the one day and betray Him shortly after.
2. The possibility that a communicant may become a traitor should put all men to search themselves.
3. Sincerity and charity will make men search and suspect themselves rather than another; as here the Apostles say not, Is it Judas? but Is it I?
4. The sincere man dares not trust the deceitfulness of his own heart, but bringeth it to the Searcher thereof, and relieth upon His testimony, as here the Apostles do, saying to Christ, Is it I?David Dickson.

Mat. 26:22. Is it I?Consider:

I. The sorrow of the disciples.

1. They were sorrowful that He, of all others, should be betrayed.

2. But the circumstance that affected them the most acutely was this: that their Master should be betrayed by one of them whom He was honouring by His presence and exalting by His fellowship.

II. The inquiry of the disciples.

Is it I? Various feelings, no doubt, prompted this inquiry:

1. Aversion to the crime itself.

2. Apprehension of the punishment due to such a crime.

3. Self-distrust.

4. Hypocrisy.Judas, also, with the faithful ones, said, Is it I?H. Ashbery.

Mat. 26:24. Judas Iscariot.It has been observed that our Lord Himself says the sternest as well as the most tender things that are recorded in the gospel. It is the Most Merciful Himself who says. It were good for that man if he had not been born. As we think over the piercing words, we see how they close for ever the door of hope, since, if in some remotely distant age there were in store for Judas a restoration of his being to light and peace, beyond that restoration there would still be for him an eternity, and the balance of good would at once preponderate immeasurably on the side of having been born. It must be good for every human being to thank God for his creation, for the opportunity of knowing and loving the great Author of his existence, unless such love, such knowledge, has been made of his own act for ever impossible.

I. There are sayings about Judas which might seem to imply that his part in life was forced on him by some inexorable destiny.St. John says that Jesus knew from the beginning who should betray Him. Our Lord asked the assembled Apostles, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? In His great intercession He addresses the Father, Them that Thou gavest Me I have kept, and none of them is lost save the son of perdition. And at the election of Matthias St. Peter points to the destiny of Judas as marked out in prophecyHis bishopric let another takeand he speaks of Judas as having gone to his own place. This and other language of the kind has been understood to represent Judas as unable to avoid his part as betrayer, and the sympathy and compassion which are thus created for him is likely to blind us to a true view of his unhappy career. The truth is that at different times the Bible looks at human life from two very differentand, indeed, oppositepoints of view. Sometimes it regards men as factors in the Divine plan for governing the world, for bringing about results determined in the Divine counsels. At other times it regards men as free agents, endowed with a choice between truth and error, between right and wrong, between a higher and a lower line of conduct; and then it enables us to trace the connection between the use each man makes of his opportunities and his final destiny. Both ways of looking at life are, of course, strictly accurate. It is no doubt difficult, if not impossible, with our present limited range of knowledge, to reconcile the Divine sovereignty in the moral world with the moral freedom of each individual man. Some of the great mistakes in theology are due to an impatience of this difficulty. If our ordL, looking down upon our life with His Divine intelligence, speaks of Judas once and again as an instrument who would contribute to the working out of the redemption of the world, the gospel history also supplies us with materials which go to show that Judas had his freedom of choice, his opportunities, his warnings, and that he became the betrayer because he chose to do so.

II. For Judas career illustrates, secondly, the power of a single passion to enwrap, enchain, possess, degrade, a mans whole character.Judas, we must suppose, had his good points, or he never would have become of his own act a disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ. But Judas had one vice or passion, the love of money, carried to a point which filled his thoughts and controlled the action of his will. Just as there are bodily diseases which, at first unobtrusive and unnoticed and capable of being extirpated, if not taken in time will spread and grow, until first one and then another limb or organ is weakened or infected by them, so that at the last the whole body is but a habitation for the disease which is hurrying it to the grave: so in the moral world one unresisted propensity to known wrong may in time acquire a tyrannical ascendency that will make almost any conceivable crime possible in order to gratify it.

III. The history of Judas shows us that great religious privileges do not of themselves secure men against utter spiritual ruin.Religious privileges only do their intended work when they are responded to on our part by the dispositions which make the most of them, by sincerity of purpose, by a humblethat is to say, a trueestimate of self, by sorrow for past sin and by watchfulness over present conduct, by an especial care not to let any one passion acquire that preponderance and supreme place in the soul which may render all helps to holiness useless, which may forfeit all prospect of eternal peace. Judas lived in the closest intimacy with Jesus; but this intimate relation with Jesus did not save Judas from a crime compared with which that of the Jewish Rabbis, and the Roman soldiers, and Pontius Pilate, and the chief priests, and the scribes and Pharisees, was venial; it did not save him becoming the betrayer. Observe, too, in the betrayal of our Lord, the survival of religious habit when the convictions and the feelings which make religion real have passed away. Judas betrayed the Son of man with a kiss. The kiss was a customary expression of mingled affection and reverence on the part of the disciples when they met their Master. To suppose that Judas deliberately selected an action which was as remote as possible from his then true feelings is an unnecessary supposition. It is more true to human nature to suppose that he endeavoured to appease whatever there may have been in the way of lingering protest in his conscience by an act of formal reverence that was dictated to him by long habit, and that served to veil from himself the full enormity of his crime at the moment of his doing it.Canon Liddon.

Mat. 26:25. Betraying Christ.There are other ways of betraying the Lord than by selling Him for a definite sum of money, and by sealing the hateful bargain with the kiss of treachery. I shall speak of three ways of betraying Christ, to which we seem specially liable in our own day.

I. The betrayal on the side of the intellect.The popular intellectual position of our day is one of antagonism to Christ. The men who profess to be the leaders of our thought are never tired of telling us that the story of Jesus is a myth, and that the life of Christ in us is the result of a delusion. I want you not to betray your Lord until you are sure that He is not your Lord. I want you not to betray Christ because men say that He is disproved, but look for yourselves whether He is disproved.

II. The betrayal through the sins of our own nature.

1. Animal appetites.

2. Covetousness.It sometimes calls itself thrift; it sometimes calls itself economy; sometimes it is even on the plea of benevolence.

3. Unbelief.

4. Want of truth.

III. The betrayal by silence.We are tempted to betray our Lord by silence amongst His people, and in the world where His people are not. St. Chrysostom tells us of one of the early martyrs, St. Lucian, who was brought before the tribunal of the judge to be condemned to death, and the judge said to him, What is your name? and he answered, I am a Christian. And what is your country? and he answered, I am a Christian. And what is your business? and he answered, I am a Christian. And to every question of the judge he had but one answer: I am a Christian. The mans life had got absorbed in his Redeemer. He had no family, no country, no trade, except to be Christs and to confess Christ before men. We want Christians of that sort in the present day.R. F. Horton, M.A.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

SECTION 64
JUDAS AGREES WITH JESUS ENEMIES TO BETRAY HIM

(Parallels: Mar. 14:10-11; Luk. 22:3-6)

TEXT: 26:1416

14 Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests, 15 and said, What are ye willing to give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they weighed unto him thirty pieces of silver. 16 And from that time he sought opportunity to deliver him unto them.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS

a.

What do you think of Judas? Whose son is he? are two important questions in this section. Collect all of the facts revealed in the New Testament about this man. Trace the development of sin in his life as it leads up to the sins of betrayal and suicide.

b.

If Matthew already mentioned him before (Mat. 10:4), why does he now present him here as one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot? Is he copying from a document that has this fixed, traditional expression, or does he have some better reason for expressing himself this way? If so, what is it?

c.

Why do you think Matthew inserted Judas secret agreement with Jesus enemies right in this place after the anointing in Bethany? Why not include it before it, even omitting the anointing? What connection is there between the two facts, if any?

d.

Do you think the authorities welcomed Judas offer or treated him with diffidence? Would they be two-faced with him, their own confederate?

e.

Judas was greedy (Joh. 12:6). Do you think that he dickered with the authorities over the price for betraying Jesus? Or did he even question the price? On what basis could he accept it as is?

f.

Do you see any significance in the final price settled upon of thirty pieces of silver? If so, what is the significance? If not, why not?

g.

Why should the priests be so glad to pay Judas in advance? What is the psychological advantage for them to do it this way?

PARAPHRASE AND HARMONY

Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve Apostles, conceived a diabolic plan. He went away and, with the Jewish clergy and officers of the Temple police, discussed a scheme for handing Jesus over to them. His offer was: What are you willing to give me, if I hand him over to you?
Upon hearing his proposal, they were delighted and promised to give him money. So he agreed. At this they counted out to him thirty silver coins. So, from that moment on he began watching for a good chance to betray Jesus when no crowd was present.

SUMMARY

His decision fixed by Jesus undimmed defeatism, Judas went right to the authorities to work out a mutually agreeable plan for Jesus capture. His incredibly timely offer was immediately welcomed by the rulers who awarded Judas the purchase price of a slave for his efforts. Thereupon he began plotting a course which would lead to his plans realization.

NOTES
1. THE TRAITORS TRADE-OFF

Mat. 26:14 Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests. When did he go? Matthew, having concluded the historical flashback, now returns to his narration of events that occurred two days before the Passover (Mat. 26:2-5; cf. Mar. 14:1 f.; Luk. 22:1-6). However, then, points to the anointing in Bethany as the psychological, if not the immediately chronological, background in which Judas determination to betray Jesus finally crystallized. The element common to Matthews two paragraphs (Mat. 26:1-2 and Mat. 26:6-13) is Jesus repeated allusion to His death. His disgusting negativism apparently proved too much for his ambitious disciple. But the betrayer did not arise from the Bethany supper to hurry over to Jerusalem in hopes of concluding a midnight deal with the powers-that-be. The likelihood is very slim that he would have found them assembled on that Sabbath evening. That he did not see the priests for several days is clearly implied in the councils desperation as late as two days before the Passover (Mat. 26:3-5). Further, the Triumphal Entry on the day after the Bethany anointing, as also the furious purification of the Temple on the following day, would have seemed to Judas to cancel all of Jesus negativism, pointing to the immediate realization of his own nationalistic hopes. But, when ensuing events did not confirm this prognosis and Jesus continued to arouse the bitter enmity of every segment of Jewish political life into a white-hot-rage, Judas grew more frustrated with Jesus political inaction. Then, Jesus latest prediction of His own death tipped Judas over the brink (Mat. 26:2; Mat. 26:14). Two days before Passover, inspired by a diabolical plan, he sought out the priests and found them ready to talk. (See below on priests.)

Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot. That Matthew should resort to this rather elaborate introduction of someone already introduced and described (Mat. 10:4) has been thought to verify the theory that he merely follows stereotyped tradition. But, as we have seen, to establish his own credibility, Matthew needs no copy-book similarity to the other Evangelists. To assume categorically that he unimaginatively copied other work is to fail to take him seriously. Rather, Matthew remained shocked that the ultimate betrayer of the Messiah of Israel should turn out to be one of the twelve! Nevertheless, he does not draw back from recording this sordid picture of one of his brother-apostles, because, as has been his approach throughout this Gospel, he must show the disciples slow growth in faith through their many falls. Thus, even in this horrible contradiction of discipleship, he objectively displays the options that confront every potential disciple. In the life of Judas Iscariot, Matthew warns, are to be found the same alternatives and components of betrayal which tempt every disciple. Not merely one of the twelve, but all of them faced the scandal of the cross. Matthews message is that one of the twelve cracked, because of the flaws in his own personal faith. By examining this negative example, we may learn what flaws of our own would, in the end, make us turn against Jesus.

WHAT MADE JUDAS DO THIS?

Many tend to judge Judas in the light of the grandeur and divinity of the One whom he betrayed, but not according to his own motives. Hence, in the highly-colored, negative language used to describe the heinousness of his crime, they obscure Judas the real man. He becomes the model of all hatred and infamy with not one scruple left to cause him to shudder at the baseness of his treachery. He is pictured as wilfully forgetting everything he knew about Jesus: His compassionate love, His matchlessly holy life, His unequalled teaching and His supernatural deeds.

While the view is credible, it fails to take into account another route that alienation from Christ can take, a route which, ironically, still permits the disciple to believe himself a loyal follower of the Lord. It is the road more commonly taken by those who believe themselves wiser than He, more practical, more versed in worldly know-how, who simply know how Gods Kingdom should be run better than the King Himself. They retain their own right to rule, their own worldly ambitions, their private, unimportant sins. But this too is no less a betrayal of Jesus Christ. In fact, it is essentially more diabolical, because perpetrated by those who, in the name of loyalty; to Him, actually prove false to (= betray) everything He stands for. The result is the same and he who does it is no less a betrayer or traitor (Mat. 10:4; Mat. 27:3; Mar. 3:19; Luk. 6:16; Joh. 6:71) or a devil (Joh. 6:70). It is from this standpoint, therefore, that Judas Iscariot is the more valuable case study in discipleship destroyed. So, what made Judas betray the Lord? We must see him as . . .

JUDAS ISCARIOT, THE COMMON SINNER

GOD did not predetermine his choices, because, aside from His determinate counsel and foreknowledge which decided that the Christ would be betrayed, by whom or how were items neither foreordained nor the subject of prophecy. (See on Mat. 26:24.) Here we see most clearly the interplay between divine sovereignty and human freedom. The Sanhedrin, following its own political fears, defined Jesus a wanted man (Joh. 11:57). Here was opportunity for anyone to betray Him. Judas, moved by his own ambitious desires, took the bait.

SATAN? Luke (Luk. 22:3) attributes this diabolical plan directly to the devil who entered into Judas. And why not? Judas had left too many doors open in his life. (See below.) This, however, was no literal possession, hence presents no problem fatal to the moral freedom of Judas who remained fully free in his conscious choices. As will be seen, Satan already owned much territory in Judas thinking. (Contrast Joh. 14:30 b.) Judas did not offer Satan any resistance. (Contrast Jas. 4:7.) Why should he? Judas thought Satans ideas sound, because they were already so identical with his own concepts! There is no overwhelming demoniacal power in Judas case any more than in our own (1Co. 10:13). Rather, Judas found the temptation to betray Jesus irresistible, because he found his own concepts irresistible.

AVARICE? His stealing from Jesus common fund revealed His love of money (Joh. 12:6). His proposal to Jesus enemies, What are you willing to give me? (Mat. 26:15) seems to confirm his greed. That covetousness is not an altogether insufficient motive was ably defended by Farrar (Life, 551f.).

How little insight can they have into the fatal bondage and diffusiveness of a besetting sin, in the dense spiritual blindness and awful infatuation with which it confounds the guilty, who cannot believe in so apparently inadequate a motive! Yet the commonest observance of daily facts which come before our notice in the moral world, might serve to show that the commission of crime results as frequently from a motive that seems miserably small and inadequate, as from some vast and abnormal temptation.

And covetousness is simply civilized idolatry (Eph. 5:5; Col. 3:5).

However, while avarice can drive a man to be cold and unscrupulous, crushing conscience to gain more, this does not explain how such a man could have ever become the disciple of that poor Man who had no place to lay His head (Mat. 8:20). Surely, in first-century Palestine there were faster routes to sheer financial success!

VINDICTIVENESS? Was the rage of hatred now boiling in Judas because of the gentle rebuke he received at the anointing in Bethany? Had he not taken a public stand for righteousness (given to the poor), but was rejected? No matter how kind were Jesus words, did he feel humiliated publicly? Did Jesus defense of Marys sentimentalism and lavish waste wound and provoke the betrayer to the limit? This hypothesis does not explain the time Judas had to cool down, his apparent inactivity for four days from the anointing until his going to the priests. Further, raging hatred, burning to get even, does not explain Judas surprise, as great as anyones, that his bargain actually resulted in Jesus death sentence (Mat. 27:3 ff.). Contrary to his own expectations, his ill-conceived plan had produced precisely the opposite result from what he intended. Then, as he had never accepted Jesus own self-understanding of Messiahship, he was left no alternative but to imagine Jesus total failure. Shattered and hopeless, Judas took revenge on himself.

Again, vindictiveness finds satisfaction, not in silver, but in blood. Were Judas merely vengeful, he would have despised pay offered for his deed, since revenge itself would have been pay enough.
THWARTED POLITICAL AMBITION. Much of Judas motivation is bound up in his reason for being Jesus disciple in the first place. Contrary to popular belief, Judas Iscariot may well have been a Galilean. (See note on Mat. 10:4 my Vol. II, 272f.) He would have been exposed to the nationalistic fervor for which the Galileans were noted. Further, Iscariot, family name of both Judas and his father, has been interpreted by some as an Aramaic transcription of the Greek sicrios, meaning assassin from the Latin sica, a dagger. This label covered the most fanatical group among the Jewish nationalists quite hostile to Rome; they did not hesitate to assassinate their political opponents (Arndt-Gingrich, 381, 757). If so, Judas stood farther to the political right than Simon the Zealot. So, if Judas followed Jesus in the hope of fulfilling the extremist political ambitions of this misguided nationalistic spirit, the fierce radicalism of Judas would be decidedly frustrated by many elements:

1.

Jesus inexplicably refused to preach the standard Messianic doctrine generally held by right-minded patriots. He stedfastly declined to inaugurate a materialistic Kingdom of God (Joh. 6:14 f., Joh. 6:66-71). Because the Lord so emphatically opted for a spiritual messiahship and refused Israels crown (Joh. 6:15), perhaps Judas discerned the beginning of the end of his own materialistic dreams of personal wealth and power. His political disenchantment may have become a bitter, vindictive drive that empelled him to formulateeven if ever so slowlywhich move to make.

2.

Then Jesus constantly warned of heartaches, set-backs, even martyrdom ahead for His most intimate followers (Mat. 24:9 ff.). Utopian dreams of wealth and glory for anyone were conspicuous for their absence.

3.

Jesus apparent failure to meet the public challenges of the Pharisees (Mat. 12:38 ff.; Mat. 16:1 ff.) in smashing ways that would command belief, shook all the Apostles, not merely Judas (Mat. 15:12; Mat. 16:6). And the enemy kept attacking.

4.

Jesus doctrine of the cross (Mat. 16:21-28; Mat. 17:22 f.), for the disciple that neither understood nor believed it, would be deeply discouraging and liable to be labelled morbid defeatism. Exasperatingly, Jesus continued to use this language (Mat. 26:2; Mat. 26:12).

5.

Perhaps most disgusting for Judas was Jesus obvious inability to seize the political advantage. After feeding the 5000, He turned down Israels crown during a moment of high revolutionary spirit among His most ardent followers! Now He did not follow up the Triumphal Entry by declaring the Kingdom. Rather, He continued inciting the authorities to implacably bitter antagonism (Matthew 21-23).

In short, Jesus gradualism, His emphasis on spiritual power and intangible riches and His repudiation of power politics all add up to the disenchantment of ANYONE thoroughly enamored with instant political solutions and tangible spoils. Even John the Baptist seemed staggered by the direction and slowness of Jesus program (Mat. 11:2 ff.). Sadly, evaluation of Judas motivation is not difficult, because there are so many political activists like him! The kind of person that would betray Jesus in light of these elements is fundamentally selfish, impatient, ambitious and demanding. This volatile mixture adds up to one clear controlling passion in Judas: INSTANT UTOPIA. Judas thievery is of a piece with his disappointment at Jesus political impotence. Avarice and desire for security from the pain, grief and sufferings of the world will lead a person not only to steal, but impatiently demand the immediate, permanent solution that instantaneously eliminates intolerable people and problems. Immediate solutions is Judas operating procedure. The long, hard road of patient teaching, self-giving service and suffering to transform mans present ills he considers absolutely intolerable. Such a man is fundamentally a person without faith. He cannot allow God time to transform into things of beauty and eternal worth all that he finds disgusting and imperfect.

Therefore, in his disgust with Jesus astounding lack of progress, he may have resolved to force the issue by precipitating a supreme crisis that would force Jesus to declare the formation of the Kingdom, accept the Crown so long refused, and issue a call to liberate Israel from the oppressor, and initiate a program that would elevate and enrich His loyal supporters.
It is even conceivable that Iscariot, honestly felt that this betrayal could promote the success of Gods plan for Israel. He was enough of a believer in Jesus to foresee that his Master could prove Himself invincible in the ensuing clash, consequently would never even risk death. Perhaps Judas imagined that the end of the affair would find Israels enemies outwitted, frustrated and finally beaten, as on so many other occasions when Jesus had shown Himself the master of every situation. Not incidentally, Judas richer by far more than thirty pieces of silver, could chuckle smugly at their discomfiture.
Thus, Judas could expect himself to be forgiven this momentary sin, because, by personally masterminding what he may have considered Jesus too impractical and other-worldly to put together, he would actually become Christs benefactor. Not incidentally, too, Christs consequent political indebtedness to Judas the king-maker promised enormous financial benefits for his daring foresight and brilliant execution. Thus, even in this betrayal Judas could consider himself quite loyal to Jesus. He could not only keep up the appearance of friendliness, but actually feel it. Was he not acting in the best interest of Jesus and of the other disciples, indeed of all Israel? From this point of view, the intention to have Jesus killed is the furthest from Judas mind.
So, in reality, Judas is not a man apart, the archtype of monstrous wickedness. This traditional image is as unrealistic as it is popular. It is but a caricature that blurs our own spiritual kinship with so much of Judas own failures as a disciple. So, what was his fatal flaw? Barclay (Matthew, II, 367) well concluded:

However we look at it, the tragedy of Judas is that he refused to accept Jesus as He was, and tried to make Jesus what he wanted Him to be. It is not Jesus who can be changed by us, but we who must be changed by Jesus. We can never use Jesus for our purposes; we must submit to Him to be used for His. The tragedy of Judas is the tragedy of the man who thought that he knew better than God.

To see Judas as a misguided, worldly-wise king-maker is neither to excuse his crime nor detract anything from the real awfulness of his sin (Mat. 26:24) or from the certainty of his condemnation (Act. 1:25). Rather, to picture him as a common disciple who followed ordinary temptations that lie before any of us has the intensity practical value of showing how desperately real is our own vulnerability to the temptation to be false to the Lord, while contemporaneously believing ourselves upright citizens of the Kingdom of God in good standing.

Judas Iscariot went to the chief priests. Even though the Pharisees also shared the determination to put Jesus to death, that Judas approached the chief priests and captains (Luk. 22:4) points to an encounter different from the Sanhedrins earlier informal meeting (Mat. 26:3 ff.). Perhaps he went first to the Temple police requesting permission to make an interesting offer to the chief priests. These captains (strategos) are probably not Roman soldiers, since this military term could also apply to the Levitical Temple guards who maintained order at all times in the Temple. (Cf. Num. 8:5-26; 2Ch. 23:1-19; Act. 4:1; Act. 5:24; see also Josephus, Wars VI, 5, 3; Edersheim, Temple, 147ff.; cf. 2Ma. 3:4.) Eventually, these Levitical officers would need to be brought into the picture, because, being under the authority of the chief priests, they could be counted on to participate in Jesus arrest (Luk. 22:52). Approaching one of these who could take him directly to Caiaphas, Judas could present himself as ready to obey the official order to turn Jesus in to the authorities.

There is no evidence that Judas appeared before the entire Sanhedrin to bargain with its members, unless it be assumed that the aforementioned council were still in session (Mat. 26:3 ff.). That all three Synoptics mention only priests and Levites, points not to the Sanhedrin, but to the clergy alone. Judas approach, therefore, was not the cause of a convocation of the Sanhedrin, but an unexpected element that radically catalyzed the ecclesiastical authorities decision to act.

2. THE TAWDRY TRANSACTION

Mat. 26:15 and said, What are ye willing to give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they weighed unto him thirty pieces of silver. Jesus had not formed a clandestine movement, but operated openly. But the chief priests dilemma lay in their fear to arrest Jesus publicly and in their ignorance about His whereabouts in private during the constant movement of people during the feast. So, Judas entire usefulness and offer hinged on his valuable particular knowledge of Jesus habits. (Cf. Joh. 18:2.) Being a member of the most intimate group of disciples, he could conduct the Lords foes directly to Him during the private, evening hours in the absence of cheering crowds to protect Him from arrest. Further, to avoid capturing the wrong person, Judas could correctly identify Jesus during a night raid.

And they weighed unto him thirty pieces of silver. Mark and Luke state that they promised (engaged) to give him money, to which Luke adds, He agreed. Was this merely the early stage of the negotiation between Judas and the leaders, and they later actually gave him the full amount after consigning Jesus to them? Both Hendriksen (Matthew, 902) and Lenski (Matthew, 1012) argue that the priests paid right away. The testimony of Mark and Luke only means to record the priests instant reaction to Judas offer, to which he declared agreement, then, according to Matthew, they paid him outright. The psychology of the situation would demand that the priests seize this unparalleled chance by morally binding Judas to go through with the betrayal.

That Matthew reports, They weighed unto him, rather than They paid him, alludes to the use of a scale to determine monetary value by weight (stesan, they placed [on the scales] they weighed). Because coins were then in common use (cf. Mat. 5:26; Mat. 10:9; Mat. 10:29; Mat. 17:24; Mat. 17:27; Mat. 22:19; Mat. 25:15 ff.; Luk. 10:35; Luk. 15:8), three things may have been true:

1.

Weighed might just be a linguistic holdover among Palestinean Jews, meaning simply paid.

2.

Either they actually weighed out the silver in the ancient manner, sanctimoniously showing religious precision in doing their wickedness.

3.

Or they simply handed him the coins, but Matthew utilized the ancient expression to point to the prophecy of Zec. 11:12 (stesan tn misthn mou trikonta arguros, LXX; Matthew has argria).

Taken in shekels, thirty pieces of silver equals 120 denarii, the equivalent of four months wages of a common day-laborer. Nonetheless, that so little should be awarded him by the Jewish authorities for the life of a MAN seems unrealistic and out of proportion to the value of their Prey.

1.

Some see this low evaluation as the priests contempt for Jesus. Perhaps the priests belittled the assistance Judas offered, and finally conceded a small compensation for his offer which would be but a minimal convenience to them. The brevity of our account, however, neither affirms nor denies such haggling. In fact, if Judas sought merely to push Jesus to act, any price that appeared to cover his true motive would be right.

2.

Did this sum represent only the down-payment of more? This is highly doubtful because,

a.

The non-coincidental allusion to Zec. 11:12 suggests that this amount was the total price. (See on Mat. 27:9-10.)

b.

When Judas had been paid in full for betraying Christ and he discovered that his plan had backfired, he returned only the thirty pieces of silver (Mat. 27:3 ff.). There is no indication of more.

So, the priests haughtily judged that the value of a slave (Exo. 21:32; cf. Gen. 37:28) was quite adequate for the Nazarene! Edersheim (Life, II, 477) sensed the high symbolic significance, unappreciated, of course, by the Temple bosses:

The Lord was, so to speak, paid for out of the Templemoney which was destined for the purchase of sacrifices, and that He, Who took upon Him the form of a servant, was sold and bought at the legal price of a slave (Php. 2:7; Exo. 21:32).

Ironically, thirty pieces of silver is the handsome price paid the Lord for His service in caring for Israel. (Zec. 11:12; see only on Mat. 27:9.)

If Judas petty bargain for the going price of a male slave seems paltry, this petty cash embezzlers love of money would not stick at turning his private plans to profit. On the other hand, if he dreamed that by pushing Jesus into a crisis which He could escape only by inaugurating the long-awaited Davidic Kingdom, then Judas stood to gain far more materially in the ensuing glory and inflowing wealth that must come. So, thirty pieces of silver would not be the last income realized at the expense of the Galilean Prophet. This small bargain would thus have been but a minor incident on the way to bigger things.

The task targeted

Mat. 26:16 And from that time he sought opportunity to deliver him unto them. From that time means from two days before the Passover (Mat. 26:1; Mar. 14:1). Thus, on Tuesday night (the beginning of Wednesday) he made his contact and on Thursday night (the beginning of Friday) he fulfilled it. But this interval is also his last moment to repent and revoke his evil agreement and return the blood money, confessing his sin. (Cf. Mat. 27:3 ff.) But, from his point of view, why should he want to fail to help Christ do what He apparently cannot bring Himself to begin? Such is the blindness of error!

The opportunity he sought must be one in which the crowds favorable to Jesus could not impede His arrest. In harmony with the Sanhedrins fear that people would riot, should the police attempt a public arrest, Judas agreed to the priests strongly recommended directive to betray him to them in the absence of the multitude (Luk. 22:6; cf. Mat. 26:5). Despite the leaders enthusiasm prompted by Judas unexpected offer, their basic solution arrived at earlier has not fundamentally changed. Postponement until after the feast is still a fundamental part of their strategy, because, although they sense their ability to move more freely than they could have without the guidance of an insider like Judas, a risky collision with the people still spelled political suicide for them.

But something imperceptible has changed. Unbeknownst to them, by their accepting Judas proposal, they surrendered absolute control of the situation back to Jesus, because he could now control the events by guiding Judas to their disadvantage. (See on Mat. 26:21-25; cf. Joh. 13:27.)

Undoubtedly, the priests and Judas imagined themselves in control of the situation, unconscious of the overruling providence of a God who can make even the wrath of men to praise Him (Psa. 76:10). Those who would not willingly serve Him as instruments of righteousness, can, without violation of their human will, be made to serve the purposes of God. Even while they are bent on gratifying their selfish desires, Gods program moves irresistibly forward. While they will not consciously cooperate with Him, He shall still be glorified in their reactions to His providence through the elements He brings into their lives and in the choices He places before them. Because He has the right to decide their options, He rules, while leaving completely unshackled their human freedom to decide.

FACT QUESTIONS

1.

When did this consultation between Judas and the authorities occur?

2.

Explain Matthews elaborate introduction of Judas as one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot.

3.

List facts in Judas life with Jesus that conspired to tempt him to betray Him.

4.

What circumstances in Jerusalem facilitated Judas going to the chief priests to offer to turn Jesus over to them?

5.

State the probable terms of the agreement.

6.

What is todays value of thirty pieces of silver?

7.

List other Biblical allusions to thirty pieces of silver.

8.

In what way did Judas offer create the mechanism whereby the Sanhedrins decision not to capture Jesus during the feast was completely reversed so as to make Jesus earlier prediction come true?

9.

Describe the type of opportunity the authorities wanted Judas to find that would be ideal for capturing Jesus. Why did not Judas betray Jesus immediately?

10.

How much time did Judas think He had to deliver Jesus into their hands? How much did he actually have, according to the actual history of the events?

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(14) Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot.The narrative of St. John leads us, as has been said, to connect the act of treachery with the fact just recorded. There was the shame, and therefore the anger, of detected guilt; there was the greed of gain that had been robbed of its expected spoil, and thirsted for compensation. The purpose that had been formed by the priests and scribes after the resurrection of Lazarus (Joh. 11:47) may well have become known, and have suggested the hope of a reward. All these feelings were gathering strength through the three days that followed. Possibly there mingled with them a sense of disappointment that the kingly entry into Jerusalem was not followed up by immediate victory. St. Lukes words, that Satan entered into Judas (Luk. 22:3), are remarkable (1) as implying the personal influence of the Tempter; (2) as indicating the fiendish tenacity with which he followed out his purpose; (3) as coinciding with what St. John (Joh. 13:27) relates at a later stage of his guilt. Nor can we forget that, even at an earlier period of his discipleship, our Lord had used words which spoke of the devil-nature that was already working in his soul (Joh. 6:70).

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

14. One of the twelve A very apostle, one of the twelve stars in the Christian firmament, thus falls, to be a betrayer and seller of the Son of man. Judas was doubtless stung by the present conversation. The chief blame of our Lord’s rebuke lay on him.

Wednesday of Passion Week.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests,’

‘One of the twelve.’ The words have an ominous ring to them. Out of twelve men chosen by the Lord of the Universe for His service, one was a turncoat and a traitor (Joh 6:70). His name was Judas Iscariot, which may mean ‘man of Kerioth’. He is the only one identified in this specific way. The reason why is clear. Mistaken identities might not matter too much in most cases, but no one wanted to be mistaken for this man. There was only one Judas who was like this.

‘Went to the chief priests.’ The attitude of the Chief Priests towards Jesus was clearly known to the disciples, and it was this fact that enabled Judas to see an opportunity of earning some extra money for himself. Perhaps, he thought, they would be willing to pay him for information that would enable them to arrest Jesus, Who was seemingly going to be arrested anyway. It was certainly worth a try.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Judas Seeks To Betray Jesus In Return for Silver (26:14-16).

The overflowing love and generosity of the woman contrasts vividly with the behaviour of Judas. Here was one of the chosen twelve whose heart was so hardened that he would sell Jesus for far less than the woman had sacrificed out of love for Jesus. While she was identifying herself with Jesus fully in the light of His coming death, Judas was trying to find a way out of his commitment to his own financial advantage.

The impression given in all the Gospels is that Judas betrayed Jesus for financial gain, and that can hardly be doubted. But we still have to consider what changed him so as to make him make such a move. It was not just the result of momentary greed, and Jesus would not originally have chosen him had He not thought that he was genuine, even though He did then possibly begin to have doubts about him (Joh 6:70), although at that point Jesus might have been aware that He would be betrayed by one of His Apostles, without knowing exactly which one, John’s added note being an ‘after the event’ one. There must therefore certainly have been a lessening of his original commitment. In the context we can in fact spot a number of possible additional motives.

* The first was that Jesus Himself had declared that He was shortly to be handed over and crucified. This was probably a very different end to the one that Judas had envisaged when he had ‘signed on’, and it probably brought to his mind Jesus’ indication that this might also be the way in which they would all end up, for they had all been told to ‘take up their crosses’ (Mat 16:24). Now that that seemed to be becoming a literal reality the prospect was suddenly not appealing.

* He had also heard Jesus declare that what the woman had done had been as an anointing for His burial, which had further confirmed the seriousness of Jesus’ earlier words. It was clear that danger was looming ever closer. Possibly it was time to get out.

* He may well also have been offended and appalled at Jesus’ acceptance of the woman’s extravagance, and His subsequent gentle rebuke. It seemingly did not tie in with his own way of thinking. It might have seemed to him that it went against all that Jesus had previously taught them, something which at a time when his mind was in turmoil helped to push him over the edge.

* He may also have resented the fact that the ‘waste’ of the perfumed oil had prevented him from getting his own hands on what was to him a fairly substantial sum of money.

* He was also seemingly aware of the attitudes of the chief priests and elders. Here were the very leaders of Judaism firmly in opposition to Jesus, and seemingly about to win.

* He might also have felt that all the talk on every side appeared to be of death. Perhaps then it made him so disillusioned that he had sunk into deep depression (which would help to explain his later suicide). It might have seemed to him as though Jesus was about to be removed without having accomplished anything Messianic, and that they were all going to be left with nothing substantial having been gained. So the question may well have arisen in his mind as to how he could extricate himself from the situation as profitably as possible. He would consider that he had, after all, sacrificed a lot for the cause and it was surely time that it gave him something back. Besides if Jesus was so certain that He was going to die (and His hunches were usually right) how could he lose if he switched to the other side? And what difference would it make whether it was brought about by him or by someone else? After all once Jesus was gone there was clearly going to be no cause worth following.

* Additionally to this John tells us that he had begun to misappropriate funds (Joh 12:6). If that were so then it explains why his moral inhibitions had become weakened. One sin always leads to another.

We can, of course, never be sure precisely what made Judas do what he did. The only thing that we finally know is that he did it.

Analysis.

a Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests, and said, “What are you willing to give me, and I will deliver Him to you?” (14-15a).

b And they weighed to him thirty pieces of silver (Mat 26:15 b).

a And from that time he sought the opportunity to deliver Him to them (Mat 26:16).

Note that in ‘a’ Judas speaks of delivering Him up, and in the parallel seeks ways of delivering Him up. Central in the construction is the great emphasis placed on ‘and they weighed to Him thirty pieces of silver’. It brings out that Judas’ God was Mammon, and that that was all both he and the Chief Priests thought Jesus was worth.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Judas offers to betray Christ:

v. 14. Then one of the Twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests,

v. 15. and said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver Him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver.

v. 16. And from that time he sought opportunity to betray Him.

There is a world of significance in the expression “one of the Twelve. ” One of those whom Jesus chose out of the larger circle of His disciples; one of those whom He had with Him for three years, in the intimacy of the communion which obtains between teacher and pupils; one of those to whom He had given the promise of special rewards; one of the Twelve that were to become the teachers of the whole world in a peculiar sense. His name, Judas Iscariot, has, since that time, and will, till the end of time, stand for the lowest and meanest treason. He stands as an example to warn and deter all men against yielding to the first impulse toward sin. Love of money, covetousness, avarice, theft, treason, and murder of His Savior: those were the stepping-stones in his downward career. Without receiving a preliminary inducement from the chief priests, he deliberately went to them and made his heinous offer. He would deliver Christ to them for a consideration. And then began a hellish bargaining and haggling over the price of betrayal. But they realized the caliber of the man with whom they were dealing, his vice being by this time probably stamped upon his face. They placed in the balance, they weighed out to him, they set before him to stimulate his greed, as he actually saw the money before him, thirty shekels or pieces of silver, about fifteen dollars, the average price for a slave in those days, Exo 21:32; Zec 11:12. For this miserable sum Judas sold his Lord, for this he bartered away his immortal soul. His vacillating mind, greedy for the money, came to a decision; he sought a convenient opportunity to betray Him.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Mat 26:14-16 . On ., see on Mat 10:4 .

] after this repast, but not because he had been so much offended, nay, embittered (Wichelhaus, Schenkel, following the older expositors), by the reply of Jesus, Mat 26:10 ff. (comp. Joh 12:7 f.), a view scarcely in keeping with the mournful tenderness of that reply in which, moreover, according to Matthew, the name of Judas was not once mentioned. According to Joh 13:27 , the devil, after selecting Judas as his instrument (Mat 13:2 ), impelled him to betray his Master, not, however, till the occasion of the last supper , a divergence from the synoptical narrative which ought, with Strauss, to be recognised, especially as it becomes very marked when Luk 22:3 is compared with Joh 13:27 .

] tragic contrast; found in all the evangelists, even in Joh 12:4 ; Act 1:17 .

In Mat 26:15 the mark of interrogation should not be inserted after (Lachmann), but allowed to remain after . . Expressed syntactically, the question would run: What will ye give me, if I deliver Him to you? In the eagerness of his haste the traitor falls into a broken construction (Khner, II. 2, p. 782 f.): What will ye give me, and I will, etc. Here is the explicative atque , meaning: and so ; on , again, there is an emphasis expressive of boldness .

] they weighed for him , according to the ancient custom, and comp. Zec 11:12 . No doubt coined shekels (Otto, Spicil . p. 60 ff.; Ewald in the Nachr. v. d. Gesellsch. d. Wiss ., Gtt. 1855, p. 109 ff.) were in circulation since the time of Simon the Maccabee (143 B.C.), but weighing appears to have been still practised, especially when considerable sums were paid out of the temple treasury; it is, in any case, unwarrantable to understand the merely in the sense of: they paid . For , to weigh , see Wetstein on our passage; Schleusner, Thes . III. p. 122; Valckenaer, ad Eurip. Fragm . p. 288. The interpretation of certain expositors: they arranged with him, they promised him (Vulg. Theophylact, Castalio, Grotius, Elsner, Fritzsche, Kuffer, Wichelhaus, Lange), is in opposition not only to Mat 27:3 , where the words refer back to the shekels already paid , but also to the terms of the prophecy, Zec 11:12 (comp. Mat 27:9 ).

. .] , shekels , only in Matthew, not in the LXX., which, in Zec 11:12 , has ( sc . ); comp. Jer 32:9 . They were shekels of the sanctuary ( ), which, as containing the standard weight, were heavier than the ordinary shekels; according to Joseph. Antt. iii. 8. 2, they were equivalent to four Attic drachmae, though, according to Jerome (on Mic 3:10 ), whose estimate, besides being more precise, is found to tally with existing specimens of this coin, they were equal to twenty oboli, or to 3 drachmae i.e. to something like 26 to 27 silbergroschen (2s. 6d.). See Bertheau, Gesch. d. Isr. pp. 34, 39; Keil, Arch. II. p. 146.

, ] he sought a good opportunity (Cic. de off. i. 40) for the purpose of, etc. Such a as he wanted would present itself whenever he saw that , Euthymius Zigabenus; comp. Mat 26:5 .

REMARK 1.

As the statement regarding the thirty pieces of silver is peculiar to Matthew, and as one so avaricious as Judas was would hardly have been contented with so moderate a sum, it is probable that, from its not being known exactly how much the traitor had received, the Gospel traditions came ultimately to fix upon such a definite amount as was suggested by Zec 11:12 . Then, as tending further to impugn the historical accuracy of Matthew’s statement, it is of importance to notice that it has been adopted neither by the earlier Gospel of Mark, nor the later one of Luke, nor by John. Comp. Strauss, Ewald, Scholten.

REMARK 2.

As regards the idea, that what prompted Judas to act as he did, was a desire to bring about a rising of the people at the time of the feast, and to constrain “the dilatory Messiah to establish His kingdom by means of popular violence” (Paulus, Goldhorn in Tzschirn. Memor . i. 2; Winer, Theile, Hase, Schollmeyer, Jesus u. Judas , 1836; Weisse, I. p. 450), the traitor himself being now doubtful, according to Neander and Ewald, as to whether Jesus was the Messiah or not, it may be affirmed that it has no foundation whatever in the Gospel record, although it may be excused as a well-meant effort to render a mysterious character somewhat more comprehensible, and to make so strange a choice on the part of Jesus a little less puzzling. According to John especially, the subjective motive which, in conjunction with Satanic agency (Luk 22:3 ; Joh 13:2 ; Joh 13:27 ), led to the betrayal was simply avarice , not wounded ambition as well, see on Mat 26:14 ; nor love of revenge and such like (Schenkel); nor shipwrecked faith on the occasion of the anointing of Christ (Klostermann); nor melancholy , combined with irritation against Jesus because the kingdom He sought to establish was not a kingdom of this world (Lange). Naturally passionate at any rate (Pressens), and destitute of clearness of head as well as force of character (in opposition to Weisse), he was now so carried away by his own dark and confused ideas, that though betraying Jesus he did not anticipate that he would be condemned to death (Mat 27:3 ), and only began to realize what he had done when the consequences of his act stared him in the face. Those, accordingly, go too far in combating the attempts that have been made to palliate the deed in question, who seek to trace it to fierce anger against Jesus, and the profoundest wickedness (Ebrard), and who represent Judas as having been from the first even at the time he was chosen the most consummate scoundrel to be found among men (Daub, Judas Ischar . 1816). That fundamental vice of Judas, , became doubtless, in the abnormal development which his moral nature underwent through intercourse with Jesus, the power which completely darkened and overmastered his inner life, culminating at last in betrayal and suicide. Moreover, in considering the crime of Judas, Scripture requires us to keep in view the divine teleology , Peter already speaking of Jesus (Act 2:23 ) as , in a way corresponding very much to the view taken of the conduct of Herod and Pilate in Act 4:28 . Judas is thus the tragic instrument and organ of the divine , though not in such a sense as to extenuate in the least the enormity and culpability of his offence, Mat 26:24 . Comp. Joh 17:12 ; Act 1:25 ; and see, further, on Joh 6:70 , Remark 1.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

“Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests, (15) And said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver. (16) And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him. (17) Now the first day of the feast of unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the passover? (18) And he said, Go into the city to such a man, and say unto him, The Master saith, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples. (19) And the disciples did as Jesus had appointed them; and they made ready the passover. (20) Now when the even was come, he sat down with the twelve. (21) And as they did eat, he said, Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. (22) And they were exceeding sorrowful, and began everyone of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I? (23) And he answered and said, He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me. (24) The Son of man goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born. (25) Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him, Thou hast said. (26) And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. (27) And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; (28) For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. (29) But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom. (30) And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives.”

I reserve the view which this scripture opens of the traitor Judas, to the account given of it by John, where it is somewhat more enlarged upon. See Joh 13:18 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Chapter 88

Prayer

Almighty God, thou art always leading us onward to Gethsemane, happy we if thou wilt enable us to sing a hymn here and there on the road. This is thy purpose that we should take our sorrows as the beginning of our joys, and should look onward beyond the place of the shadow into the place of the shining of the eternal light. Our eye will sorrowfully rest upon the gloom, it will not lift itself hopefully and look onward to the light, and herein have we great and needless sorrow, for we remember not that the dawn is at hand, and that thou art preparing us for great visions of glory. Help us, in the spirit of our Master, to endure the cross, despising the shame, and looking onward all the while to the glory that shall be revealed. Show us that the walk is a short one to Gethsemane, there a night of praying and sweltering blood, by and by, and sharply, the cruel cross with its nails and spear, then a moment’s burial, and away into immortality. May this lie before us as the open road of the soul, and believing these great and solemn truths may we gird up our loins and pursue the way thou hast marked for our feet. Grant unto us that whilst we are eating the bread of afflictions and the bitter Egyptian herbs, we may see our deliverer and hear the voice of emancipation.

Thou hast led us just in the old Biblical way: no new line have we written, though we have often tried to do so. Thou dost begin with us in the sunny garden where the four rivers are and all the beauteous flowers and luscious fruits: thou dost grant unto us limitation, and bind us to do this as well as not to do that, and we are templed and seduced and lured by visible and invisible powers, and drawn straight to disobedience and rebellion. We are cast out of the garden into the wilderness, the great, bleak, drear desert, and but for thy mercy we should die there: but thou dost appear for us and grant a great promise, even to the rebellious heart, and thou dost set before our blinded eyes, blinded because of great tears of sorrow, the rainbow of covenant and hope, and the great light of final restoration, being purified by the sacrificial blood. And onward thou dost lead us, over many a weary road, along many a lengthening mile, until we are compelled to sit down for very tiredness, and to beg water from the wayfarer, and yet all the while thou dost show to our eyes the whitening harvest, and give to us promise of plenitude of joy and deep and durable content. Lead on, thou gracious One: we will follow thee: Saviour of the world, cleanse us every day by thy blood, inspire us by thy Spirit, feed us with thy truth, and sustain us with thy grace.

We bless thee that we cannot die. If any man believeth in Christ, he shall never see death: it may pass by him, and change his relation to things, but he will never see it. This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith, so now we say, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” We have conquest and peace through him who was calm with the serenity of God.

We commend one another to thy gentle protection. Regard our affectionate solicitude for one another as a prayer unto thyself and plentifully answer it, thou whose heart is love. We commend unto thee all for whom we ought to pray, the royal, the great, the ruling, those who lead our sentiment and direct our national affairs, for all men in authority and influential positions the Lord’s blessing be not withheld from any one of them, may they be caught in the impartial rain of his grace, and rejoice because he hath visited his inheritance. Regard our loved ones from whom we are separated for the moment; be with them in the far away city, on the great sea, in the middle of the wilderness, amongst strange people and amongst languages they cannot speak: bring them back to us in thy due course, thou who dost keep the time of the world in the high Heavens. Take up our children into thine arms and bless them, thou Son of Mary, thou Son of every woman.

Oh let thy light and thy salvation go forth like angels over all the earth, drive away the darkness of sin, superstition, error: liberate from bondage all who are enclosed in the prison of fear, distress, or despair, or do thou come, thou mighty One, whose right it is to reign, and having cleansed us in the one fount opened for sin and for uncleanness, and regenerated us by the mighty power of the Holy Ghost, may the earth be recovered from her wandering, may the prodigal be brought home again and set among the brotherhood of the stars, to go out no more for ever. Amen.

Mat 26:14-30

Sanctified Symbols

You remember the meaning of the passover: it was a feast of the Jews, established for the purpose of keeping in perpetual remembrance the passing of the Red Sea, the coming out of Egypt, the final deliverance from Egyptian bondage. This festival was kept up every year by the Jews, it was therefore the feast of memorial, its one purpose was to keep continually in view the power and goodness of God, displayed to ancient Israel in delivering the people from Pharaoh and in causing them to pass over the Red Sea as on dry ground.

Jesus, as a Jew, would keep this feast. You reform institutions best oftentimes by remaining within them. It is true that on many occasions assaults may be delivered from the outside, but as a general rule the great and beneficent revolutions and reforms come from within the institutions themselves, and are unmarked by the violence of external onslaught. Jesus Christ said, early in his ministry, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil,” that is, to bring up to the very highest point of meaning and to cause to pass away, because the divine idea has ripened and culminated and there is therefore nothing further for the institution to accomplish.

The disciples asked him where they should prepare the passover for him. It was a family feast: there was something national in the arrangements, and there was something domestic in the details. All the lambs were brought together, penned together, so that the Jews went down and chose their lambs from the great multitude, and took those lambs to the priest to be examined, that they might be declared to be fit for the sacrifice. Two of the disciples of Jesus Christ went onward to do this preliminary work. They went to the pens, they selected a lamb according to the law, they took their turn amongst the others in having the lamb submitted to the priest’s scrutiny: in due time it was slain in the legal way and eviscerated, and what was designed for the altar was left behind, and the carcase was trussed with two skewers made of pomegranate wood and shaped like a cross, and then the lamb was taken home to be prepared for the evening meal.

The disciples, acting under the instructions of Jesus Christ, were dependent on another man for hospitality. Perhaps John, Mark, perhaps Joseph of Arimathsea the name is not given. There was no reason to divulge it at the time, and it has now fallen into oblivion. But hospitality was willingly and graciously offered on the occasion of the passover, and those who were very poor, and offered such hospitality as was in their power, were rewarded by having the skin of the lamb left, and by having the vessels which were used at the little feast given to them. The passover was never to be celebrated by fewer than ten or by more than twenty at a time. Jesus went with the twelve one of them was hardly in the count it was just about enough. We shall get the revelation why certain numbers were chosen, by-and-by: we shall find that not the smallest thing in the whole economy was done by the law of haphazard or accident.

Look at the little plain table. There is on it the unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, calling up the afflictions of ancient Israel. On it there was also a dish of bitter herbs, reminding those who partook of them of the hard life which ancient Israel was doomed to live in Egypt, and there was upon it a dish of the conserve of fruits, and that might sweeten the feast a little, for surely in every lot there is one drop of sweetness. And there were three cups of wine, or one cup thrice filled; it was filled with red wine mingled with water, and it was presented to the head of the feast. He rose and uttered a thanksgiving to God for the fruit of the vine, and partook of it and passed the cup on to the other guests, and then the second cup came and they ate again and commented upon the meaning of the festival, and the third cup was filled, and it was after that, that as they were eating, Jesus took the bread and blessed it, and brake it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat: this is my body.” And he took the cup and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink ye all of it, for this is my blood of the new covenant rather than testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” According to an Eastern custom, the guests put their fingers into the vessels and took out what they required to eat, hence the expression: “He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish,” he that is dipping it, he that has just dipped it, the hand that has just met mine, “the same shall betray me. It is the last time the hands shall meet on earth, they have joined together in this one act of fellowship; hence on there will be nothing but disseverance, separation of the widest kind, which no line can measure. He whose hand is with mine in the dish, or has just been with mine in the dish, the same shall betray me.”

Such is a little history of this memorial festival, which I have rapidly sketched in order that we may the more vividly realise the scene, whilst I proceed to ask one question and to answer it, namely: Is this the same Jesus with whom we have accompanied in the reading of this gospel, these many months past? Can we identify him as the same has he changed in any vital aspect or relation? We have never seen him under such a shadow before. Does he now, under the impending and terrific gloom, reveal the same features? Could little children go up to him now and say, “This is the Jesus that once blessed us?” Or is this some fancy portrait, lacking in every element of consistency with the living man who has travelled with us month by month in our Scriptural studies and made our hearts burn within us? To my mind it is the same Jesus, and I think the proof is more than ample. Here, for example, is the same absolute control over all circumstances, giving him the unspeakable serenity which has always appeared to us to be amongst the sublimest of his miracles. He is in no tumult: the great clock has struck his hour, but the striking has not paralysed him: he is, if possible, grander than ever, as there is about the sunset a royalty that we do not see in the rising sun, a richer pomp, a grander magnificence. In the rising sun there was power, promise, prophecy, the uplifting of one who said, “1 can do it, and will do it; I will fill the whole arch with light and make it glow with heat,” but about the setting sun there is the calmness of one whose battle is won, a king dying amid pomp worthy the grandeur of his life.

So Jesus Christ calls himself the Master even now. When he instructed the disciples to go into the city to such a man, he told them to say unto the man, “The Master saith.” Coming from his lips these words have great meaning; coming from his lips at such a time they seal him as one who was indestructibly conscious of sovereignty. He does not tremble or cower or beg. He commands even now, without a house to eat the passover in, dependent upon his friends for the last hospitality he does not say, “I ask thee, I beg of thee, I entreat of thee,” he says, “The Master saith, My time is at hand: I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples.” Why, this is the very Jesus that looked up and saw Zacchus, and said, “Make haste, Zacchus, and come down, for today I must abide at thine house.” He had no house, and yet he seemed to have all houses: he went in where he pleased, and made the place the greater by his presence. Poverty never lost anything by his entertainment, and the rich man always found his silver cup on the top of the sack when he opened it, when his wondrous Guest had gone, and the money was there, and nothing was lost. This is Christian experience the ages through. No man loses anything by Christ. When any man in a moment of haste and thoughtlessness says, “We have forsaken all and followed thee,” he makes such a reply as causes the man to burn with shame that he was forgetful enough and ungrateful enough to mention the little so-called sacrifice he had made.

Here is a mastery of details. Everything was pointed out with the ease and clearness of a man who apparently had nothing else to do. Where the room was, how it was furnished, how everything was to be set in order so that no two men ever left a master with more carefully or precisely worded instructions. He does not hang down his head that he may sob out his weakness, he does not speak incoherently because of the great pressure that was upon his life, he does not say, “Please spare me now: do what you will, and whatever you arrange, I will accept.” He is still Master, and Lord still, and Great Sovereign yet, and the outgoing of his words is the utterance of a command, and in his look there is nothing to betray the consciousness of fear or the presence of weakness. So far we know we can identify him as the Man who was always the same, who never knew one shock of paralysis, who never hesitated as to the course he ought to pursue, and who, when his voice was lowest, showed that it was not the suppression which comes of weakness, but the lowering of his mighty thunder to accommodate the weakness of others.

Here also we have the same tender compassion. Again and again we have seen that compassion is the key-word of the Saviour’s life. But for his pity the most of his miracles never would have been wrought. He never worked a miracle merely to exhibit his strength. He never hurled his almightiness upon the attention of society to overcome men by mere power. He wept, he sighed, he pitied, he compassionated with the most clement and tender spirit; and because he had compassion upon those who were needy and in pain or in great distress, he wrought miracles for the supply of their necessity, for the soothing of their pain, and for the abolition of their sorrow.

We have the same compassion exhibited in this closing instance of his fellowship with the disciples. Whom does he compassionate now? He compassionates Judas Iscariot. Think of that for one moment. Surely we read the words in a wrong tone if we read the twenty-fourth verse as a mere threatening “Woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed: it had been good for that man if he had not been born.” He does not turn upon Judas and look daggers at him: he does not utter these words in a tone of exasperation and resentment, then the occasion would have lost its sublimity. He interprets the great decrees: he stands fast in the tabernacle of God’s eternity, and there might have been tears in his eyes when he said: “Woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed.” Not, “I threaten you with woe,” not, “I will one day repay you for this,” not, “This is the day of your triumph, but my day will come, and then I will visit you with penal chastisement because of this betrayal.” Such a tone would have been out of rhythm with the gospel of his love, and also with the thunder of his almightiness; it would have become a quarrel, a mere contention; he regarded it as a fulfilment of prophecy, the final expression of that which had been decreed from eternity. Woe will be the lot of him who does this, he will suffer for it when he sees one day what has been done: he will have no joy in this, he will sup sorrow out of a deep bowl and will drink the very dregs of the bitterness. Oh, I pity that man; it had been good for him that he had not been born.

Do not understand from these remarks that Judas was a good man. This does not alter the character of Judas himself: I am speaking of the divine interpretation of a fact, and the divine interpretation of the development of a certain man’s character. Judas himself was a traitor, a thief, a man for whom no word of merely personal condemnation is bad enough, but we must not find the whole interpretation of the case herein: there is the divine view as well as the human view, and Jesus Christ pities the man who has fitted himself to carry out this purpose though it be old as the decrees of eternity: he pities the sinner in working out the sin, there is an aspect of every sinner which touches him, not with anger, but with real grief and pity; when he sees a man breaking his commandments right in two, and throwing the halves away from him with eager hand, he does not burn with anger only. Leave such anger to artificial deities. God is love, and he cries over the poor fool as he sees him doing the wrong. That does not excuse the man, that does not make the man one whit whiter or better, but I contend that there is an aspect even of sin which moves the divine pity as well as the divine anger, and I feel that the rhythm of this solemn music is kept up equally throughout, not by interposing notes of discord such as would follow in mere commination or threat of penalty. I would see in these words from Christ’s point of view the sorrow which God always feels when he looks upon the traitor. We are all traitors; some have come to public infamy, but all should live in private shame. We may run away from Judas as to the mere accident of what he did, but he is our brother, born in our heart, and we are born in his, so far as the internal act of personal disobedience or rebellion or treachery is concerned.

We misrepresent the great Father when we think of him only as being angry with the sinner. Anger never suggests redemption; wherever God has followed the sinner with offers of redemption and mercy and forgiveness, it is because he has looked upon the sinner, not with an eye of anger only, but with an eye of pity and tenderness and compassion, so far as the sinner himself is concerned. He never looks with pity upon the sin, he never looks without pity on the sinner.

This is the same Jesus then: he is as compassionate as ever, he will love down to the end. Perhaps even on the rack itself he may say, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” and if so, he will, to his last breath, be as compassionate as he has been throughout his whole career. Let us wait and sec.

In the next place, here is the same use of incidents, and the same elevation of opportunities and occasions to their highest significance and purpose. “And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to his disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it, for this is my blood of the new covenant.” Have we seen this Jesus before? Unquestionably. Where? At Cana in Galilee. What was he doing there was he keeping the feast of the passover? No he was keeping a wedding feast, and at that wedding feast he turned the water into wine, and now he turns the wine into blood. He always moves to some higher generalisation, to some broader gift, to some grander display of beneficent power. Where have we seen this Jesus before? In the desert place. What was he doing there? Turning a few loaves into a feast for a great multitude. What is he doing now? Taking the bread lying before him and breaking it so that it should be in symbol his broken body, flesh given for the life of the world.

Have we seen this power displayed elsewhere? Indisputably. Where? Why in the very beginning. God took the dust of the earth and made of it a man. Christ took the water and made it into wine: he took the wine and made it into blood, he took the bread and made it into flesh behold I make all things new! think not to say unto yourselves, We are the children of Abraham, for verily I say unto you, God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. Think not that you are reputed the succession, and that God is dependent upon you for the continuity of the Abrahamic line: God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.

We do not see the deep meaning of things. We read the letter and leave it as the letter: we do not wait until it burns, and out of it there comes the voice of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Hence we have all manner of foolish controversies about the words “This is my body: this is my blood.” Go back to the feast itself, sit down as members of that little band, and watch the action from its beginning, and tell me if the mystery be not imported into it by the priests, for it is not there by the action of Christ himself. When we come to what is now termed the Lord’s Supper, we come to the passover of the Christian Church, we come to eat memorial bread and drink memorial wine. There is no magic about it, no priest’s fingers manipulate the elements so as to change them or give them value. They are to you what you are to them. You do not see them, you eat as if not eating, drink as if not drinking, and if your heart be penitent and broken utterly, and there be no place in it or excuse for sin, and your whole soul goes out after the loving Christ for the benefits of his completed redemption and his continual intercession, you will be as if you had eaten his flesh and drunken the very blood of his heart. Do not try to explain these things in words, and do not fritter away your attention and fritter away your love, too, in trying to reconcile these with your reason. You cannot take the whole sum into your house, however broad your window or directly southerly your aspect: you can take in but a ray or two, the great sun does not feel as a prisoner within the lines of your architecture. So with these great sacred hallowed histories and suggestions; they take upon themselves the language of every country, the accent of every dialect, and they change themselves so as to throw broadening glory and ample hospitality according to the ever-enlarging civilisation of the world.

And is there some poor soul that is afraid of eating and drinking the bread and wine unworthily? You cannot do so if you eat and drink penitentially. If you turn the action into a revel, into a drunkard’s feast, you eat and drink unworthily. It is not you that have to be worthy, it is the feast that has to be worthily approached, that is to say, approached with a due sense of its dignity, meaning, unction, and spiritual suggestion.

The passover was eaten, the mouthful of bitter herbs had been taken by Christ for the last time, the new Symbol had been set up, the law of the passover had been fulfilled in the institution of the symbolic feast. “And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives.” Some few of the men sang the great solemn words of the ancient Hallelujah, then the others joined in saying the last words of the song, and ended with the exclamation, “Hallelujah.” They fulfilled the law to the last letter, no jot or tittle of it was taken away. Poor singing it was, from an artistic point of view grand singing from the heavenly standpoint. If you sing artistically only, the shame be yours and mine. Sometimes the hymn that is sobbed may be more acceptable than the hymn that is sung. Sometimes the prayer that is broken off in the middle is a mightier intercession than a gorgeous address or a splendid litany. God accepts the heart: he knows what we would do if we could, but “God abhors the sacrifice where not the heart is found.”

They went out into the mount of Olives. So simple is the action when set down in cold words. There never was such a going out before there never has been such a going out since! Let us be very quiet just now: the Master has gone out He is on his way to Gethsemane!

To Gethsemane!

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

14 Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests,

Ver. 14. Then one of the twelve, &c. ] sc. When he heard of the chief priests and elders meeting about such a matter, Satan sets him on, being now malcontent, to make one among them. That spirit of darkness loves to dwell in a soul that is clouded by passion: as in Saul when he was envious at David; and here in Judas, when defeated of his design, and fretted at his Master’s reprehension.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

14 16. ] COMPACT OF JUDAS WITH THE CHIEF PRIESTS TO BETRAY HIM. Mar 14:10-11 .Luk 22:3-6Luk 22:3-6 . (See also , Joh 13:2 .) When this took place, does not appear. In all probability, immediately after the conclusion of our Lord’s discourses, and therefore coincidently with the meeting of the Sanhedrim in Mat 26:3 . As these verses bring before us the first overt act of Judas’s treachery, I will give here what appears to me the true estimate of his character and motives. In the main, my view agrees with that given by Neander, in his Leben Jesu, p. 688. I believe that Judas at first became attached to our Lord with much the same view as the other Apostles. He appears to have been a man with a practical talent for this world’s business, which gave occasion to his being appointed the Treasurer, or Bursar, of the company (Joh 12:6 ; Joh 13:29 ). But the self-seeking, sensuous element, which his character had in common with that of the other Apostles, was deeper rooted in him; and the spirit and love of Christ gained no such influence over him as over the others, who were more disposed to the reception of divine things. In proportion as he found our Lord’s progress disappoint his greedy anticipations, did his attachment to Him give place to coldness and aversion. The exhibition of miracles alone could not keep him faithful, when once the deeper appreciation of the Lord’s Divine Person failed. We find by implication a remarkable example of this in Joh 6:60-66 ; Joh 6:70-71 , where the denunciation of the one unfaithful among the twelve seems to point to the (then) state of his mind, as already beginning to be scandalized at Christ. Add to this, that latterly the increasing clearness of the Lord’s announcements of his approaching passion and death, while they gradually opened the eyes of the other Apostles to some terrible event to come, without shaking their attachment to Him, was calculated to involve in more bitter disappointment and disgust one so disposed to Him as Judas was.

The actually exciting causes of the deed of treachery at this particular time may have been many. The reproof administered at Bethany (on the Saturday evening probably), disappointment at seeing the triumphal entry followed, not by the adhesion, but by the more bitter enmity of the Jewish authorities, the denunciations of our Lord in ch. Mat 22:23 . rendering the breach irreparable, and perhaps his last announcement in Mat 26:2 , making it certain that his death would soon take place, and sharpening the eagerness of the traitor to profit by it: all these may have influenced him to apply to the chief priests as he did. With regard to his motive in general, I cannot think that he had any design but that of sordid gain, to be achieved by the darkest treachery . See further on this the note on ch. Mat 27:3 .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Mat 26:14-16 . Judas offers to betray Jesus (Mar 14:10-11 , Luk 22:3-6 ).

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Mat 26:14 . , then; the roots of the betrayal go much further back than the Bethany scene vide on Mat 17:22-23 but that scene would help to precipitate the fatal step. Death at last at hand, according to the Master’s words. Then a base nature would feel uncomfortable in so unworldly company, and would be glad to escape to a more congenial atmosphere. Judas could not breathe freely amid the odours of the ointment and all it emblemed. . ., one of the Twelve (l).

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mat 26:14-16

14Then one of the twelve, named Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests 15and said, “What are you willing to give me to betray Him to you?” And they weighed out thirty pieces of silver to him. 16From then on he began looking for a good opportunity to betray Jesus.

Mat 26:14 “Iscariot” There are several theories concerning this word (the word is spelled differently in various Greek manuscripts). It could refer to

1. a man of Kerioth, a city of Judah

2. man of Kartan, a city of Galilee

3. the leather bag used to carry money

4. the Hebrew word for “strangling”

5. the Greek word for assassin’s knife

If #1 is true he was the only Judean in the Twelve. If #5 is true he was a zealot like Simon.

There has recently been written a book that interprets Judas in a positive light. The book is entitled Judas, Betrayer or Friend of Jesus? by William Klassen, Fortress Press, 1996. My problem with it is that id does not take the comments in John’s Gospel seriously.

Mat 26:15 “What are you willing to give me to betray Him to you” The motive seems obvious (cf. Joh 12:6). The tragedy of Judas is unexplainable. Many modern theories suppose him to be trying to force Jesus to be the expected militant Jewish messiah. The Gospel of John asserts he was a thief.

“thirty pieces of silver” This fulfilled the prophecy of Zec 11:12-13 (cf. Mat 27:9-10). Jesus was the rejected Shepherd. It was the price paid in the OT for a gored slave (cf. Exo 21:32). Chapters 9-14 of Zechariah are quoted several times as a prophetic source in relation to Jesus’ ministry.

1. Mat 21:4-5 quote Zec 9:9

2. Mat 24:3 quotes Zec 12:10

3. Mat 26:15 quotes Zec 11:12-13

4. Mat 26:31 quotes Zec 13:7

5. Mat 27:9-10 quotes Zec 11:12-13

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

unto. Greek. pros.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

14-16.] COMPACT OF JUDAS WITH THE CHIEF PRIESTS TO BETRAY HIM. Mar 14:10-11. Luk 22:3-6. (See also , Joh 13:2.) When this took place, does not appear. In all probability, immediately after the conclusion of our Lords discourses, and therefore coincidently with the meeting of the Sanhedrim in Mat 26:3. As these verses bring before us the first overt act of Judass treachery, I will give here what appears to me the true estimate of his character and motives. In the main, my view agrees with that given by Neander, in his Leben Jesu, p. 688. I believe that Judas at first became attached to our Lord with much the same view as the other Apostles. He appears to have been a man with a practical talent for this worlds business, which gave occasion to his being appointed the Treasurer, or Bursar, of the company (Joh 12:6; Joh 13:29). But the self-seeking, sensuous element, which his character had in common with that of the other Apostles, was deeper rooted in him; and the spirit and love of Christ gained no such influence over him as over the others, who were more disposed to the reception of divine things. In proportion as he found our Lords progress disappoint his greedy anticipations, did his attachment to Him give place to coldness and aversion. The exhibition of miracles alone could not keep him faithful, when once the deeper appreciation of the Lords Divine Person failed. We find by implication a remarkable example of this in Joh 6:60-66; Joh 6:70-71, where the denunciation of the one unfaithful among the twelve seems to point to the (then) state of his mind, as already beginning to be scandalized at Christ. Add to this, that latterly the increasing clearness of the Lords announcements of his approaching passion and death, while they gradually opened the eyes of the other Apostles to some terrible event to come, without shaking their attachment to Him, was calculated to involve in more bitter disappointment and disgust one so disposed to Him as Judas was.

The actually exciting causes of the deed of treachery at this particular time may have been many. The reproof administered at Bethany (on the Saturday evening probably),-disappointment at seeing the triumphal entry followed, not by the adhesion, but by the more bitter enmity of the Jewish authorities,-the denunciations of our Lord in ch. Mat 22:23. rendering the breach irreparable,-and perhaps his last announcement in Mat 26:2, making it certain that his death would soon take place, and sharpening the eagerness of the traitor to profit by it:-all these may have influenced him to apply to the chief priests as he did. With regard to his motive in general, I cannot think that he had any design but that of sordid gain, to be achieved by the darkest treachery. See further on this the note on ch. Mat 27:3.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Mat 26:14-16. Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests, And said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver. And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him.

It was one of the twelve, who went unto the chief priests, to bargain for the price of his Lords betrayal. He did not even mention Christs name in his infamous question, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? The amount agreed upon, thirty pieces of silver, was the price of a slave; and showed how little value the chief priests set upon Jesus, and also revealed the greed of Judas in selling his Master for so small a sum. Yet many have sold Jesus for a less price than Judas received; a smile or a sneer has been sufficient to induce them to betray their Lord. Let us, who have been redeemed with Christs precious blood, set high store by him, think much of him, and praise him much. As we remember with shame and sorrow, these thirty pieces of silver, let us never undervalue him, or forget the priceless preciousness of him who was reckoned as worth no more than a slave.

Mat 26:17-18. Now the first day of the feast of unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the passover? And he said, Go into the city to such a man, and say unto him, The Master saith, My time is at hand; I will keep the Passover at thy house with my disciples.

How truly royal was Jesus of Nazareth even in his humiliation! He had no home of his own therein he could keep the Passover with his disciples; he was soon to be put to a public and shameful death; yet he had only to send two of his disciples into the city to such a man, and the guest-chamber, furnished and prepared, was at once placed at his disposal. He did not take the room by arbitrary force, as an earthly monarch might have done; but he obtained it by the diviner compulsion of almighty love. Even in his lowest estate, our Lord Jesus had the hearts of all men beneath his control. What power he has now that he reigns in glory!

Mat 26:19. And the disciples did as Jesus had appointed them; and they made ready the Passover.

If Christs disciples always loyally did a Jesus appointed them, they would always speed well on his errands. There are many more people in the world ready to yield to Christ than some of us think. If we would only go to them as Peter and John went to this man in Jerusalem, and say to them what the Master saith, we should find that their hearts would be opened to receive Christ even as this mans house was willingly yielded up at our Lords request.

Mat 26:20-21. Now when the even was come, he sat down with the twelve. And as they did eat, he said, Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.

Our Lord remained in seclusion until the evening, and then went to the appointed place, and sat down, or rather, reclined at the paschal table, with the twelve. And as they did eat, he said, Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. This was a most unpleasant thought to bring to a feast, yet it vas most appropriate to the Passover, for Gods commandment to Moses concerning the first paschal lamb was, With bitter herbs they shalt eat it. This was a painful reflection for our Lord, and also for his twelve chosen companions: One of you, and his eyes would glance round the table so he said it, One of you shall betray me.

Mat 26:22. And they were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I?

That short sentence fell like a bomb-shell among the Saviours bodyguard. It startled them; they had all made great professions of affection for him, and, for the most part, those professions were true. And they were exceeding sorrowful: and well they might be. Such a revelation was enough to produce the deepest emotions of sorrow and sadness. It is a beautiful trait in the character of the disciples that they did not suspect one another, but every one of them enquired, almost incredulously, as the form of the question implies Lord, is it I? No one said, Lord, is it Judas? Perhaps no one of the eleven thought that Judas was base enough to betray the Lord who had given him an honourable place among his apostles. We cannot do any good by suspecting our brethren; but we may do great services by suspecting ourselves. Self-suspicion is near akin to humility.

Mat 26:23-24. And he answered and said, He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me. The Son of man goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed ! it had been good for that man if he had not been born.

A man may get very near to Christ, ay, may dippeth his hand in the same dish with the Saviour, and yet betray him. We may be high in office, and may apparently be very useful, as Judas was; yet we may betray Christ. We learn from our Lords words that divine decrees do not deprive a sinful action of its guilt: The Son of man goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed. His criminality is just as great as though there had been no determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. It had been good for that man if he had not been born. The doom of Judas is worse than non-existence. To have consorted with Christ as he had done, and then to deliver him into the hands of his enemies, sealed the traitors eternal destiny.

Mat 26:25. Then Judas which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him, Thou hast said.

Judas appears to have been the last of the twelve to ask the question, Is it I? Those who are the last to suspect themselves are usually those who ought to be the first to exercise self-suspicion. Judas did not address Christ as Lord, as the other disciples had done; but called him Rabbi, Master. Otherwise his question was like that of his eleven companions; but he received from Christ an answer that was given to no one else: He said unto him, Thou hast said. Probably the reply reached his ear alone, and if he had not been a hopeless reprobate, this unmasking of his traitorous design might have driven him to repentance, but there was nothing in his heart to respond to Christs voice. He had sold himself to Satan before be sold his Lord.

Mat 26:26-28. And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples and said, Take, eat, this is my body. And he took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

The Jewish Passover was made to melt into the Lords supper, as the stars of the morning dissolve into the light of the sun. As they were eating, while the paschal supper was proceeding, Jesus instituted the new memorial which is to be observed until he comes again. How simple was the whole ceremony! Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to his disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. Christ could not have meant that the bread was his body, for his body was reclining by the table; but he intended that broken bread to represent his body which was about to be broken on the cross. Then followed the second memorial, the cup, filled with the fruit of the vine, of which Christ said, Drink ye all of it. There is no trace here of any altar or priest; there is nothing about the elevation or adoration of the host; there is no resemblance between the Lords supper and the Romish mass. Let us keep strictly to the letter and spirit of Gods Word in everything; for, if one adds a little, another will add more, and if one alters one point, and another alters another point, there is no telling how far we shall get from the truth. The disciples had been reminded of their own liability to sin; now their Saviour gives them a personal pledge of the pardon of sin, according to Lukes record of his words, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.

Mat 26:29. But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Fathers kingdom.

Thus Jesus took the great Nazarite vow never to drink of the fruit of the vine till he should drink it new with his disciples in his Fathers kingdom.

He will keep his tryst with all his followers, and they with him shall hold high festival for ever.

Mat 26:30. And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives.

Was it not truly brave of our dear Lord to sing under such circumstances? He was going forth to his last dread conflict, to Gethsemane, and Gabbatha and Golgotha; yet he went with a song on his lips. He must have led the singing, for the disciples were too sad to start the hallel with which the paschal feast closed: And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives. Then came that desperate struggle in which the great Captain of our salvation wrestled even to a bloody sweat, and prevailed.

Mat 26:31-32. Then said Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me, this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.

Observe our Lords habit of quoting Scripture. He was able to speak words of infallible truth, yet he fell back upon the Inspired Record in the Old Testament. His quotation from Zechariah does not seem to have been really necessary, but it was most appropriate to his prophecy to his disciples: All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. Jesus was the Shepherd who was about to be smitten, but he foretold the scattering of the sheep. Even those leaders of the flock that had been first chosen by Christ, and had been most with him, would stumble and fall awe from him on that dread night, but the Shepherd would not loose them, there would be a re-union between him and his sheep: After I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee. Once again he would resume, for a little while, the character of their Shepherd-King, and with them he would revisit some of their old haunts in Galilee, ere he ascended to his heavenly home. I will go before you, suggests the idea of the food Shepherd leading his flock after the Eastern manner. Happy are his sheep in having such a Leader, and blessed are they in following him whithersoever he goeth.

Mat 26:33. Peter answered and said unto him, Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended.

This was a very presumptuous speech, not only because of the self-confidence it betrayed, but also because it was a flat contradiction of the Masters declaration. Jesus said, All ye shall be offended because of me this night, but Peter thought he knew better than Christ, so he answered, Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended. No doubt these words were spoken from his heart; but the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Peter must have been amazed, the next morning, as he discovered the deceitfulness and wickedness of his own heart, as manifested in his triple denial of his Lord. He who thinks himself so much stronger than his brethren, is the very man who will prove to be weaker than many of them, as did Peter, not many hours after his boast was uttered.

Mat 26:34. Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.

Jesus now tells his boastful disciple that, before the next mornings cock-crowing, he will thrice deny his Lord. Not only would he stumble and fall with his fellow-disciples, but he would go beyond them all in his repeated denials of that dear Master whom he professed to love with intense affection than even John possessed. Peter declared that he would remain true to Christ if he were the only; faithful friend left, Jesus foretold that, of all the twelve, only Judas would exceed the boaster in wickedness.

Mat 26:35. Peter said unto him, Though I shall die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. Likewise also said all the disciples.

Here again Peter contradicts his Master straight to his face. It was a pity that he should have boasted once after his Lords plain prophecy that all the disciples would that night be offended; but it was shameful that Peter should repeat his self-confident declaration in the teeth of Christs express prediction concerning him. He was not alone in his utterance, for likewise also said all the disciples. They all felt that under no circumstances could they deny their Lord. We have no record of the denial of Christ by the other ten apostles, although they all forsook him and fled, and thus practically disowned him. Remembering all that they had seen and heard of him, and especially bearing in mind his most recent discourse, the communion in the upper room, and his wondrous intercessory prayer on their behalf, we are not surprised that they felt themselves bound to him for ever. But, alas, notwithstanding their protests, the Kings prophesy was completely fulfilled, for that night they were all offended.

Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible

Mat 26:14. , departing[1118]) The disciples were not under restraint. The wicked could depart when he would.

[1118] Judas departed, doubtless, about the nightfall of Wednesday. On that very night, being possessed by Satan, he seems, as we have reason to think, to have had an interview with our Lords adversaries, but on the following day to have fixed with them on the further proceedings.-Harm., p. 496.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Mat 26:14-25

11. BARGAIN OF JUDAS;

THE LAST SUPPER

Mat 26:14-25

Records of this are found in Mar 14:10-11 and Luk 22:1-5. “Then one of the twelve,” Judas Iscariot; he was angry at the rebuke that Jesus had given for objecting to Mary’s using the precious ointment; his hate, avarice, and fears urged him to immediate action. Luke says that “Satan entered into Judas.” Matthew does not record any epithet or accusation against Judas for the crime that he committed. He “went unto the chief priests” and offered to make a bargain with them; he went with those who were conspiring against Jesus. Luke adds “captains”; these were the leaders of a guard of priests and Levites whose duty was to protect the temple and the sacred rites from being interrupted by riotous persons; they were at the command of the chief priests for such a work as this. Judas left the company of the disciples on the evening of the first day of unleavened bread, when it was usual for pious Jews to put away all leaven from out of their houses. In his heart was “the leaven of malice and wickedness.” (1Co 5:8.)

Judas made the proposition to the chief priests and captains to deliver Jesus to them; they did not first tempt him, but the evil originated in his own heart. “What are ye willing to give me, and I will deliver him unto you?” Luke tells us that “they were glad, and covenanted to give him money.” (Luk 22:5.) They made an agreement with him that he should inform them of the place where Jesus spent his evenings, that they might take him secretly; otherwise they would have searched for him in vain in the crowded city. The word “covenanted” has the force of putting forth money; they promptly “weighed unto him thirty pieces of silver.” Probably thirty shekels, or about fifteen dollars of our money; this was the price of a common slave. (Exo 21:32.) This comported well with their hypocrisy and hatred, to fix the price of the Son of God as the price of a slave! The price fulfilled a prophecy. (Zec 11:12.) Judas now driven by the fire of hasty resentment, and led by the attractions of gain to seek a bribe for treason, “sought opportunity to deliver him unto them.” The opportunity that he sought was the absence of the multitude; the people were so strongly on the side of Jesus that the authorities were afraid to tak him openly; their method was to take him secretly, charge him with some crime, and thus gain the multitude against him. The convenient season for the treachery of Judas was soon to come. The very men who took advantage of the treachery of Judas despised him, and spoke the most cutting words to him, as one having in his hands “the price of blood.” After Judas had left the disciples, Jesus continued his converation with them as is recorded in Joh 13:31 to John 15.

17-19 Now on the first day of unleavened bread.-Parallel records are found in Mar 14:12-16 and Luk 22:7-13. “The first day of unleavened bread” was the day of preparation for the Passover Feast. There were eight days of unleavened bread. The first was the fourteenth of the month Nisan, which, on this occasion, we are told, came on March 25. The Jews were not required to remove all leaven, which with them was simply sour dough, used in baking bread, from their houses, until evening, when the lamb was killed; but to avoid all danger of offense, they began to purge their houses from attic to cellar, by the light of day, with care and precaution somewhat akin to superstition. We have no record of what Jesus and nine of his disciples did during this day, Thursday. Peter and John were sent into the city to make preparation for the Passover, and Judas was conniving with the enemies of Jesus; probably Jesus remained in Bethany with the nine disciples until time to eat the passover Thursday evening. They had asked Jesus, “Where wilt thou that we make ready for thee to eat the passover?” Jesus commanded Peter and John to “go into the city,” which was Jerusalem. The paschal lamb could be eaten nowhere else. Peter and John had asked the question where, that is, at what place in Jerusalem, would they eat the passover. This was asked early that morning. It required two to convey the lamb to the temple and to witness to the priest the number who were to eat it. Jesus sent Peter and John to find the particular man, “bearing a pitcher,” who was probably a disciple. This caution may have been used to prevent Judas molesting the company. He could not, if he were present, determine just what place Jesus would eat the passover with his disciples. They were to address this man and tell him that “the Teacher” or Master requested that he “keep the passover at thy house with my disciples.” It was usual for the people of Jerusalem during this great feast to open their houses to strangers who came to the city to keep the feast.

The day was spent by Peter and John in executing this command. After finding the man, and seeing the rooms, they had to buy the lamb, carry it to the temple, and have it killed there, and the blood sprinkled in the name of a paschal lamb or a passover for thirteen people. Judas was necessarily included, because if he had offered to withdraw, it must have been done before Peter and John left, and that would excite suspicion; or if he had already left the company, before Peter and John, he would likely return and eat the passover with Jesus and the other apostles. After killing the lamb they would carry it to the place where it was to be eaten, get the bread and wine ready, and the bitter herbs, and any other things necessary for the feast. According to Josephus, the lamb could not have been slain until after the evening sacrifice at 3:00 P.M., so that they would be occupied until evening; Josephus also informs us that no paschal lamb could be killed for any company fewer than ten nor more than twenty. “My time is at hand”; the time of his betrayal to the Jews had arrived; his disciples did not comprehend this statement. It seems that Jesus and his disciples ate the passover on Thursday evening, while the priests delayed their supper till the following day. (Joh 18:28.)

There was a latitude of time allowed by the Jews for the eating of the passover. The lamb was to be slain at the temple, with certain words and rites; it was slain before the setting of the sun on setting of the sun on Thursday and might be eaten at any time after dark and before the next morning. (Exo 12:8-10.) One might postpone eating it until a late hour; but much was to be done that night, and Jesus chose the earliest hour which the law required. The Jews fixed the time of the new moon by its appearance; but between the apparent and real age of the moon, as the latter would be marked by astronomical calculations, there was the difference of a day. Matthew, Mark, and Luke made it clear that Thursday was a proper day for the Passover, while John as clearly shows that the Pharisees kept this feast on the following day. (Joh 19:14-31.) Peter and John were faithful in carrying out the command and made ready the passover. They procured, examined, killed, and roasted the lamb, searched for leaven in order for its removal, procured water and wine, and prepared all things necessary for the paschal supper.

20-25 Now when even was come.-The Passover evening had arrived, and Jesus and his disciples went from Bethany to Jerusalem; the lamb was killed between “the evenings,” that is, between 3:00 P.M. and sunset. (Exo 12:6.) It could be eaten at any hour of that night. (Exo 12:8.) The first passover was eaten while standing, with loins girded, feet shod, ready to go on a journey. (Exo 12:11.) But Jesus and his disciples were “sitting at meat,” or reclined, as no journey was to be made at this time. After the children of Israel had settled in the promised land, they adopted the custom of reclining while eating the passover. If Jesus and his disciples that night followed the customs of the Jews, they were reclined on their meal couches, took a cup of wine in the right hand, and uttered the prayer of consecration, saying, “Blessed be thy name, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast created the fruit of the vine.” “And as they were eating,” John says that Jesus “was troubled in the spirit, and testified.” His human nature began to be overwhelmed with the increasing weight of the awful suffering which he was to endure; the first part of his sorrow was the sin of Judas, whom he now convicts openly of his crime. His disciples could not understand his suffering and did not suspect that he would be delivered up by one of their number. It was a surprise to them when Jesus announced “that one of you shall betray me.” The record is clear that Jesus sat at meat “with the twelve disciples”; this included Judas. Judas could not be absent, as it was impossible for him after the lamb was killed at the temple to transfer his name to another company he was obliged, therefore, to violate every obligation, human and divine, to achieve his guilty purpose. Judas went from this sacred feast to the enemies of Christ. (Psa 41:9; Joh 13:18.)

When Jesus announced that one of the twelve would betray him, they were exceedingly sorrowful and began “to say unto him every one, Is it I, Lord?” They were amazed, grieved, and doubtful; they did not understand his statement, neither could they understand why he should so mar or disturb the Passover Feast with such an accusation against them; so they anxiously inquired, each for himself, “Is it I?” Jesus gave an answer by saying, “He that dipped his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me.” Jesus saw the disciples grieved and agitated by his announcement and gave indication as to who would be the traitor; he makes a sign by which the traitor shall be known to all by fulfilling to the letter a prophecy. (Psa 41:9.) It was customary then in the East, and still is, to place food before guests in a large dish and each one may dip his hand in the dish and take such portion of the food as he may desire. At the Passover supper the Jews provided a particular dish made of bitter herbs, palm branches, and raisins seasoned with vinegar; the whole mixture serving to remind them of the hard bondage of their ancestors in Egypt. It may be that Judas dipped his hand with Jesus into this dish. Jesus then quoted a prophecy to be fulfilled and uttered a “woe unto that man through whom the Son of man is betrayed!” He then added that “good were it for that man if he had not been born.” After all the others had inquired if they would betray him, Judas then asked, “Is it I, Rabbi?” Judas is bold and wily to the last; the innocent disciples say “Lord,” but the guilty one said “Rabbi.” By this change Judas denied the claim that Jesus was his “Lord.” Jesus answered mildly the insulting hypocritical question and said, “Thou hast said.” This was the very mildest form of affirmation; how gently Jesus thus deals with the bold insult of the hardened wretch that should betray him.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

a False Friend Exposed

Mat 26:14-25

While Mary sacrificed a large sum of money to show her love to Jesus, Judas sold Him for the hire of a slave. See Zec 11:12.

The Lord had a great desire to eat this last meal with His own; and it was a proof of His loving anticipation of the strain to which they were to be exposed in soul and body, that He had made arrangements for it with some secret disciple. How glad this loving soul must have been to make the loan of that guest chamber!-but have you placed your heart at His disposal? See 1Co 5:7.

It was a time of testing as well as of fellowship. None of us should sit at the table of the Lord without careful self-examination and confession. We all need to say, Lord, is it I? and to ask that we may be clad in the white robes through His precious blood. Remember, also, that they who in all humility and self-distrust fear lest they should commit the deed of treachery, are always the ones to whom it will be impossible.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Chapter 78

Lessons From the Betrayer

Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests, And said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver. And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him. Now the first day of the feast of unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the passover? And he said, Go into the city to such a man, and say unto him, The Master saith, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples. And the disciples did as Jesus had appointed them; and they made ready the passover. Now when the even was come, he sat down with the twelve. And as they did eat, he said, Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. And they were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I? And he answered and said, He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me. The Son of man goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born. Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him, Thou hast said.

(Mat 26:14-25)

Commenting on this passage, C. H. Spurgeon wrote

What a contrast to the incident we have just been considering! The anointing of Jesus is to be the theme of admiration wherever the gospel is preached, but his betrayal by Judas will be a subject for execration to all eternity. It was one of the twelve, who went unto the chief priests, to bargain for the price of his Lord s betrayal. He did not even mention Christs name in his infamous question, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? The amount agreed upon, thirty pieces of silver, was the price of a slave, and showed how little value the chief priests set upon Jesus, and also revealed the greed of Judas in selling his master for so small a sum. Yet many have sold Jesus for a less price than Judas received, a smile or a sneer has been sufficient to induce them to betray their Lord.

Let us, who have been redeemed with Christs precious blood, set high store by him, think much of him, and praise him much. As we remember, with shame and sorrow, these thirty pieces of silver, let us never undervalue him, or forget the priceless preciousness of him who was reckoned as worth no more than a slave.

Mat 26:14-25 is the divinely inspired record of one of the blackest events in the history of the world. There is no greater evidence of the wickedness that is in man than that which is revealed in the character and conduct of Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of our Lord. These verses speak of things we would all prefer not to consider; but they are written here for our instruction. And if God the Holy Spirit will be our Teacher, we will find much in them that will bring joy to our hearts. I want to show you five lessons to be learned from them.

The Word of God

First, these verses clearly establish the fact that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. You might ask, Where is that taught in this passage? The inspiration of Scripture is established by the precise fulfillment of the prophecies of Scripture. Here we once more see Old Testament prophecy fulfilled to the letter, not by one who was attempting to bring honor to the Word of God, but by one who was inspired by the devil himself.

The Scriptures clearly predicted that our Savior would be betrayed by one of his most intimate companions, one who ate bread with him. Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me (Psa 41:9). The Old Testament specifically prophesied that the Lord Jesus would be betrayed for thirty pieces of silver, which would then be cast down in the temple, and that the money would be used to buy a place in the potters field (Zec 11:11-13).

Ever reverence the Bible as the inspired Word of God. This Book alone is Gods Word. This Book alone is authoritative in the church and kingdom of God. This Book alone is our rule of faith and practice. This Book alone is able to make us wise unto salvation. Treasure this Book. Seek to know this Book. Believe this Book. Obey this Book.

Religious, but Lost

Second, we learn by the example of Judas Iscariot that a person may enjoy great religious privileges and make an impressive show of religion and yet be an unregenerate reprobate. Judas Iscariot was religious, but lost. He had the highest possible attainments and privileges of outward religion. He was a chosen apostle and companion of Christ. He was an eyewitness of the Lords miracles. He heard the gospel from the lips of the incarnate God, ate at the same table with him, and dipped his bread in the bowl from which the Master himself ate. Judas saw things that neither Abraham nor Moses could see. He heard things that neither David nor Isaiah ever heard. This man lived in the society of the Lord Jesus and his apostles. He preached with Peter, James, and John. Yet, Judas was a lost man.

He was, it appears, a man of highest reputation and esteem among men. He appears to have been a man who was, in outward appearance, quiet and unassuming. We read of very little that he ever said or did; but he was trusted by all to be the treasurer of the early church. When the Master said, One of you shall betray me, no one suspected Judas. Yet, Judas was a hypocrite.

Like Lots wife, Judas Iscariot is held before us as a beacon. Think of this base, vile man often. Do not ever imagine that he was outwardly wicked. He was not. Outwardly, he was an example of what men call purity, holiness, and godliness. But Judas was a devil. Whenever we think of Judas, we ought to pray, Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting (Psa 139:23-24).

Do not be content with mere outward religion. Do not be satisfied with the approval of men. Make certain that your religion is a matter of the heart, a union of your very soul with the Son of God, by faith. Spurgeon warned, A man may get very near to Christ, ay, may dip his hand in the same dish with the Savior, and yet betray him. We may be high in office, and may apparently be very useful, as Judas was, yet we may betray Christ.

The Root of All Evil

Third, the Holy Spirit shows us here a vivid picture of the fact that the love of money is the root of all evil. I cannot conceive of a clearer proof of this fact than Judas Iscariot. The wretched question, What will ye give me? betrayed the evil that ruled his heart. Judas had given up much to follow Christ. Outward sacrifices he was prepared to make. But he could not and would not give up his covetousness. Money was his god. Money ruled his heart. His every thought was about money. His every word was about money.

We have many illustrations of the corrupting influence of the love of money. It is not the lack of money or the possession of money that is the root of all evil, but the love of money. It was for money that Joseph was sold into Egypt, Samson was betrayed by Delilah, Gehazi deceived Naaman and lied to Elisha, Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit, and Judas betrayed the Son of God.

Be warned, the love of money will destroy your soul. If ever it gets control of you, it will harden, paralyze, freeze, and sear your heart and conscience. It destroyed Judas; and it will destroy you and me, if ever it gets hold of our hearts. What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Be wise and pray daily, Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me. They that will be rich in this world often find in the end, like Esau and Judas, that the bargain they made was the worst of bargains.

Having said all that, it must be recognized that many have betrayed the Son of God at a far lower price than the thirty pieces of silver for which Judas bargained. Many, especially those who claim to be preachers, have sold him for no more than the smile and approval men!

Our Sovereign God

Fourth, these verses give us a very clear revelation of the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, is the sovereign God of the universe. Notice the language our Savior used to speak of Judas betrayal of him. He speaks not as one who was alarmed, or even slightly disturbed by the things he knew were about to transpire, but as One who is in total control of the circumstances and people around him. This Man who was about to be betrayed was and is the eternal God who made, and ruled, and disposed of his betrayer.

His divine omniscience is evident in the fact that our Master knew what his disciples would do, what the certain man in the city would do, what Judas had done and what he would do. He knew it all because he predestinated it all and controlled it all. His divine dominion is seen in the fact that the man whose house he would use for the observance of the passover would readily obey his will. We read in Mat 26:18-19, And he said, Go into the city to such a man, and say unto him, The Master saith, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples. And the disciples did as Jesus had appointed them; and they made ready the passover. His divine purpose is clearly stated in his assertions, My time is at hand, and The Son of man goeth as it is written of him.

Everything and everyone in this world is moving according to precise schedule to a predestined end. Everything and everyone, even the actions of wicked men, the very demons of hell, and the devil himself do nothing to thwart, hinder, or even disturb Gods purpose. They are only his servants, used by him to accomplish his purpose (Psa 76:10; Rom 8:28-30; Rom 11:36). Even Judas was an instrument in the hands of our God for the accomplishment of his gracious purposes of redemption and grace for his elect. Nowhere is the fact of our Lords absolute and total sovereignty seen more clearly than in the events surrounding his betrayal and crucifixion (Act 2:23; Act 4:27-28; Act 13:28-29).

Better Not To Have Been Born

Fifth, our Lord Jesus here teaches us that it would be better never to live at all than to live and die without Christ. Our Savior said, The Son of man goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born (Mat 26:24).

Judas stands before us in the Word of God as a glaring warning. He would this day give anything simply never to have been born. Judas is in hell! He lived and died without Christ as an unbeliever and an enemy of God. Now he suffers the wrath of God in hell. So, too, shall you if, like Judas, you live and die without Christ. Be warned. If you are yet without Christ, you are just like Judas. Your heart is exactly the same as Judas Iscariots (Mat 15:19). You may be taken captive by Satan at his will, and led by him to do things you never dreamed you were capable of doing (2Ti 2:26). Unless you repent, unless you look to Christ by faith, you shall be with Judas forever in hell, suffering the terrible wrath of almighty God.

Let us never forget what we are by nature, where we were and where we were headed when God saved us by his matchless, free, and sovereign grace (Isa 50:1-2). Let us ever give thanks to our God for his sovereign dominion of all things, and for his infinite mercy toward us. If we believe, it is because God the Father loved us with an everlasting love and chose us to be his own, God the Son loved us and gave himself for us, and God the Holy Spirit loved us and gave us life and faith in Christ.

Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible

The Betrayer’s Bargain

Mat 26:14-16. Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests, and said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver. And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him.

What a contrast to the incident we have just been considering! The anointing of Jesus is to be the theme of admiration wherever the gospel is preached; but his betrayal by Judas will be a subject for execration to all eternity. It was one of the twelve, who went unto the chief priests, to bargain for the price of his Lord’s betrayal. He did not even mention Christ’s name in his infamous question, “What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? “The amount agreed upon, thirty pieces of silver, was the price of a slave; and showed how little value the chief priests set upon Jesus, and also revealed the greed of Judas in selling his Master for so small a sum. Yet many have sold Jesus for a less price than Judas received; a smile or a sneer has been sufficient to induce them to betray their Lord.

Let us, who have been redeemed with Christ’s precious blood, set high store by him, think much of him, and praise him much. As we remember, with shame and sorrow, these thirty pieces of silver, let us never undervalue him, or forget the priceless preciousness of him who was reckoned as worth no more than a slave.

Fuente: Spurgeon’s The Gospel of the Kingdom

one: Mar 14:10, Luk 22:3-6, Joh 13:2, Joh 13:30

Judas: Mat 10:4, Joh 6:70, Joh 6:71, Joh 18:2

Reciprocal: 2Sa 15:31 – Ahithophel Isa 32:7 – instruments Mat 5:18 – verily Mat 26:21 – Verily Mat 26:45 – the hour Mat 27:3 – Judas Mar 3:19 – Judas Luk 6:16 – Judas Iscariot Luk 22:4 – went Luk 22:47 – Judas Jam 1:15 – when

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

6:14

The covetous heart of Judas was evidently stirred by the “waste” of something that would have brought in a goodly sum of money, and since it was bestowed upon Jesus, the thought occurred to him that he could recover some of it by betraying him to the Jews for money.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Mat 26:14. Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot. Matthew does not turn aside from his narrative to declare motives or to heap up epithets.The principal motive, as is inferred from the strong expression of John (Joh 12:6), was avarice. Other views: that he was undecided whether he would betray his Master, and wished to see if the chief priests would offer a sufficient inducement; that he felt it his duty to deliver Jesus up; that he tried an experiment, to see if our Lord would save Himself by a miracle, or establish a temporal kingdom. None of these theories agree with the strong language used by our Lord in Mat 26:24, and Joh 17:12, or with the positive statement of Luke, that before the interview with the chief priests, Satan entered into him. The character of Judas laid him open to this Satanic influence, and nothing could do this more effectually than love of gain. Temporal ambition doubtless had a place in his heart, but even this was a part of his avarice; for, being treasurer of the Twelve, he might hope to be treasurer of the kingdom. His practical talent must have been marked, to secure this position for him, and the scene at Bethany shows that he had influence among his associates. Whatever was known to our Lord, whatever the purpose of God, the motive of Judas at the time when the Twelve were chosen, was probably the same as that of the others. The rest were neither well instructed nor highly spiritual, and in outward appearance Judas was probably equal to any of them. All were more or less self-seeking, but over him the love and spirit of Christ had no such influence as over the others. As the Lord drew near to Jerusalem, ever telling of His death, Judas could not fail to manifest his real spirit. This was done at the supper in Bethany. The reproof then administered had its effect (hence the order of Matthew and Mark). The triumphal entry of the next day may have encouraged is false hopes, but the subsequent occurrences only disappointed him the more. Seeing the enmity of the rulers, hearing the denunciations (chaps, 22, 23) upon the class, who as rich and honored filled the stations to which his desires pointed, convinced from the final prediction (Mat 26:2) that our Lord would be put to death, the hour had come when his sordid soul was ready to listen to the suggestions of Satan; then entered Satan into Judas, surnamed Iscariot. The same expression is used by John (Joh 13:27), at the critical moment when Judas left the Passover feast. His remorse is readily explained. See chap. Mat 27:3-5. Even that was Satanic.

Chief priests. Luke adds: and captains. The latter were the guardians of the temple and its treasures. This probably took place while the Sanhedrin was assembled (Mat 26:3); but Judas may have made the offer to both, in the hope of getting a better reward.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Observe here, 1. The person betraying our blessed Redeemer, Judas: Judas, a professor; Judas, a preacher; Judas, an apostle, and one of the twelve whom Christ had chosen out of the world to be his dearest friends, and his own family and household. Shall we wonder to find friends unfriendly and unfaithful towards us, when our Saviour had a traitor in his own house?

Observe, 2. The heinousness of his sin in betraying Christ; he betrayed Christ Jesus, a Man; Christ Jesus, his Master; Christ Jesus, his Maker; the first was murder, the second treason.

Learn thence, That it is no strange or uncommon thing for the vilest of sins, and most horrid impieties, to be acted by such persons as make the most eminent profession of holiness and religion.

Observe, 3. What was the sin occasioning and leading Judas to the committing of this horrid sin; it was covetousness. I do not find that Judas had any particular malice against Christ’s person, but a base and unworthy spirit of covetousness possessed him; this made him sell his Master. Covetousness is a root-sin; and inordinate desire and love of riches, an eager and unsatiable thirst after the world, is the parent of the most monstrous and unnatural sins: Therefore remember we our Saviour’s caution, Take heed and beware of covetousness Luk 12:15; he doubles the caution, to show us both the great danger of the sin, and the great care we ought to take to preserve ourselves from it.

Observe, 4. How small a sum tempted the covetous mind of Judas to betray his Master, thirty pieces of silver; which amounted but to three pounds fifteen shillings of our money. This was the price of a slave or common servant, Exo 21:32. As Christ took upon him the form of a servant, so his life was valued at the rate of an ordinary servant’s life. it may seem a wonder, that the high-priests should offer no more for the life of our Saviour, and that Judas should accept so little; seeing that his covetousness was so great, and their rage so grievous, how comes it to pass that he demands so little, and that they offer no more? Had the reward been proportioned to the greatness of their malice, it had been thirty thousand rather than thirty pieces of silver. But the scripture must be fulfilled; accordingly the wisdom of God overruled this matter, for fulfilling that prophecy, They weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. Zec 11:12 Let not any Christian be concerned that he is despised and undervalued; he can never meet with so great a reproach, with so low an abasement, for Christ, as Christ underwent for him.

Observe lastly, Judas’s folly, as well as treachery; he that might have demanded what he pleased for this purchase, He says unto the chief priests, What will ye give me? As if he had said, ” I am resolved to sell him at any rate, give me what you will for him.” Nay, farther, Judas covenanted, and they promised, but whether it was now paid, appeareth not.

Learn, that such a person as has a vile and base esteem of Jesus Christ, will part with him upon any terms. The bare expectation of a few shekels of silver, will make such a one willing to part with a pearl of great price. Wonder not then to see some persons selling their country, their friends, their God, and their religion, for money. Judas did so before them.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Mat 26:14-16. Then one of the twelve Judas Iscariot, having been more forward than the rest (Joh 12:4) in condemning the woman, thought himself, as it appears, peculiarly affronted by the rebuke which Jesus now gave to all his apostles. Rising up, therefore, he went straightway into the city to the high-priests palace, where doubtless he had received some previous information that the council would be assembled, and finding them there accordingly, he said unto them, What will ye give me Words that show he was influenced to the infamous action partly, at least, by the love of filthy lucre; and I will deliver him unto you? I will undertake to put him into your hands, at a time and place in which you may effectually secure him, without the danger of giving any alarm to the people. And they covenanted Or, bargained, with him for thirty pieces of silver That is, (reckoning each piece to be of the value of 2 Samuel 6 d.) for 3l. 15s. sterling, the price of a slave, Exo 21:32. A goodly price that he was prized at of them! Zec 11:13. The sum was so trifling that it would be unaccountable that he should have been influenced in any degree by it, to betray to death his friend and Master, had it not been that, as Luke observes, Luk 22:3, Satan at this time entered into him, which doubtless he was permitted to do to punish him for giving way to a worldly, covetous spirit, and probably for other sins, and especially his not improving the great privilege he had enjoyed for about three years, in statedly attending upon Christs ministry, hearing all his divine discourses, and being a constant spectator of his holy life and astonishing miracles, and having the high honour of being called to be one of his apostles. And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him Namely, as Luke observes, in the absence of the multitude, and that officers from the high- priest and his council might come upon him and apprehend him privately.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

TREASON OF JUDAS

Mat 26:14-16; Mar 14:10-11; Luk 22:3-6. But Satan entered into Judas, called Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve. There is not an intimation against Judas till about the close of the second year of our Lords ministry. (Joh 6:64-71) Judas had faithfully preached these two years with the other eleven, his financial office infelicitously conducing to that fatal development of money-love. This whole year he has been gradually wrought upon more and more by Demon Avarice. Now, he even has the impudence to speak out overtly at the supper condemnatory of Mary for her lavish prodigality in pouring forty-five dollars worth of Oriental myrrh on the head of the Savior. Of course, this bold step encouraged Satan, who had long been tinkering with him and pulling on him, so that he proceeded at once to enter into him, thus gaining a decisive victory, and taking possession of him.

And having gone away, he spoke with the high priests and captains as to how he might deliver Him to them. These captains were the officers of the temple guards. The holy Temple Campus is said to contain thirty-five acres. Most of it is open pavement, where the Moslem millions now assemble on their great religious anniversaries; but where the children of Abraham, in the good olden time, used to gather, not only from all parts of Canaan, but from their Gentile dispersions in all the ends of the earth. As Jesus was a native Jew, He was never prohibited from coming into this holy area. At present, any Jew entering that holy place would be instantly killed. I have entered it twice, and both times guarded by Turkish soldiers, with loaded guns, so long as I remained in the sacred inclosure. Hence that holy place, from the days of David and Solomon, has been constantly guarded by soldiers. Of course, these temple guards were subject to the ipse dixit of the hierarchy.

And they rejoiced, and contracted with him to give money [i. e., thirty pieces of silver, as Matthew says]. And he promised them, and continued to seek opportunity to deliver Him to them without a mob. Such was the popularity of Jesus with the common people, that they constantly anticipated and feared that, in case of an attempt to arrest Him, a mob would rise, take Him out of their hands, and do them violence.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

Mat 26:14-16. The Betrayal (Mar 14:10 f.*, Luk 22:3-6).Mt., who omits the three hundred pence of the preceding incident, alone tells us that Judas received thirty pieces of silver. This is due to Zec 11:12 f. Note how, in contrast to Mk. and Lk., he makes greed the motive of Judas.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

The agreement to betray Jesus 26:14-16 (cf. Mar 14:10-11; Luk 22:3-6)

Here the word "then" probably identifies a logical connection with what preceded. [Note: Plummer, p. 356; M’Neile, p. 376.] Evidently Judas made these plans the same day that Jesus predicted His crucifixion in two days, namely, on Wednesday (Mat 26:1-5). None of the evangelists recorded Judas’ motives for betraying Jesus, but Judas may have taken offense at Jesus’ rebuke on the previous Saturday evening (Mat 26:10-13). Perhaps the fact that Jesus permitted Mary’s extravagant act without rebuke convinced him that Jesus was not the Messiah. [Note: Walvoord, Matthew: . . ., p. 209.] This may have been part of his motivation. The chief priests were the clerical leaders of Israel. They were able to do Jesus in.

The 30 pieces of silver they agreed to pay Judas were a paltry sum and fulfilled Zec 11:12. The amount constituted a month’s wages, if the silver pieces were denarii, which seems likely. [Note: France, The Gospel . . ., p. 979.] Matthew did not refer to this as a fulfillment of prophecy here, but he did later in Mat 27:9-10. Nevertheless he was careful to make the verbal correspondence with the Zechariah passage close here. [Note: Charles C. Torrey, "The Foundry of the Second Temple at Jerusalem," Journal of Biblical Literature 55 (December 1936):249.] This was the price an Israelite had to pay his neighbor if his ox accidentally gored his neighbor’s slave to death (Exo 21:32). This small amount of money shows the light esteem with which the chief priests and Judas regarded Jesus (cf. Isa 53:3).

". . . tragically, Judas, in selling his services to the chief priests to betray Jesus, unwittingly acts in a manner that is the exact opposite of ’servanthood’: Jesus is the servant par excellence, for he delivers himself to death in order that others might gain life; by contrast, Judas delivers Jesus to death in order that he might gain advantage for himself . . ." [Note: Kingsbury, Matthew as . . ., p. 143.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)