Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 27:5
And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.
5. in the temple ] Properly, “in the holy place,” which only the priests could enter.
went and hanged himself ] A different account of the end of Judas is given Act 1:18; either by St Peter, or by St Luke in a parenthetical insertion. It is there stated (1) that Judas, not the Priests, bought the field: (2) that “falling headlong he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out;” (3) that the field was called Aceldama for that reason, not for the reason stated in this passage. The two accounts are not actually inconsistent, but the key to their concordance is lost. No entirely satisfactory solution of the discrepancy has been given.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
And he cast down … – This was an evidence of his remorse of conscience for his crime. His ill-gotten gain now did him no good. It would not produce relief to his agonized mind. He attempted, therefore, to obtain relief by throwing back the price of treason; but he attempted it in vain. The consciousness of guilt was fastened to his soul; and Judas found, as all will find, that to cast away or abandon ill-gotten wealth will not alleviate a guilty conscience.
In the temple – It is not quite certain what part of the temple is here meant. Some have thought that it was the place where the Sanhedrin were accustomed to sit; others, the treasury; others, the part where the priests offered sacrifice. It is probable that Judas cared little or thought little to what particular part of the temple he went. In his deep remorse he hurried to the temple, and probably cast the money down in the most convenient spot, and fled to some place where he might take his life.
And went and hanged himself – The word used in the original, here, has given rise to much discussion, whether it means that he was suffocated or strangled by his great grief, or whether he took his life by suspending himself. It is acknowledged on all hands, however, that the latter is its most usual meaning, and it is certainly the most obvious meaning. Peter says, in giving an account of the death of Jesus Act 1:18, that Judas, falling headlong, burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. There has been supposed to be some difficulty in reconciling these two accounts, but there is really no necessary difference. Both accounts are true. Matthew records the mode in which Judas attempted his death by hanging. Peter speaks of the result. Judas probably passed out of the temple in great haste and perturbation of mind. He sought a place where he might perpetrate this crime.
He would not, probably, be very careful about the fitness or the means he used. In his anguish, his haste, his desire to die, he seized upon a rope and suspended himself; and it is not at all remarkable, or indeed unusual, that the rope might prove too weak and break. Falling headlong – that is, on his face – he burst asunder, and in awful horrors died – a double death, with double pains and double horrors – the reward of his aggravated guilt. The explanation here suggested will be rendered more probable if it be supposed that he hung himself near some precipitous valley. Interpreters have suggested, says Professor Hackett (Illustrations of Scripture, pp. 275, 276), that Judas may have hung himself on a tree near a precipice over the valley of Hinnom, and that, the limb or rope breaking, he fell to the bottom, and was dashed to pieces by the fall. For myself, I felt, as I stood in this valley and looked up to the rocky terraces which hang over it, that the proposed explanation was a perfectly natural one. I was more than ever satisfied with it. I measured the precipitous, almost perpendicular walls in different places, and found the height to be, variously, 40, 36, 33, 30, and 25 feet. Trees still grow quite near the edge of these rocks, and, no doubt, in former times were still more numerous in the same place. A rocky pavement exists, also, at the bottom of the ledges, and hence on that account, too, a person who should fall from above would be liable to be crushed and mangled as well as killed. The traitor may have struck, in his fall, upon some pointed rock, which entered the body and caused his bowels to gush out.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 5. In the temple] signifies, properly, the temple itself, into which none but the priests were permitted to enter; therefore must signify, near the temple, by the temple door, where the boxes stood to receive the free-will offerings of the people, for the support and repairs of the sacred edifice. See this amply proved by Kypke.
Hanged himself] Or was strangled – . Some eminent critics believe that he was only suffocated by excessive grief, and thus they think the account here given will agree with that in Ac 1:18. Mr. Wakefield supports this meaning of the word with great learning and ingenuity. I have my doubts – the old method of reconciling the two accounts appears to me quite plausible – he went and strangled himself, and the rope breaking, he fell down, and by the violence of the fall his body was bursted, and his bowels gushed out. I have thought proper, on a matter of such difficulty, to use the word strangled, as possessing a middle meaning between choking or suffocation by excessive grief, and hanging, as an act of suicide. See Clarke on Mt 10:4. Dr. Lightfoot is of opinion that the devil caught him up into the air, strangled him, and threw him down on the ground with violence, so that his body was burst, and his guts shed out! This was an ancient tradition.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
5. And he cast down the pieces ofsilverThe sarcastic, diabolical reply which he had got, inplace of the sympathy which perhaps he expected, would deepen hisremorse into an agony.
in the templethetemple proper, commonly called “the sanctuary,” or “theholy place,” into which only the priests might enter. How isthis to be explained? Perhaps he flung the money in after them. Butthus were fulfilled the words of the prophet”I cast them tothe potter in the house of the Lord” (Zec11:13).
and departed, and went andhanged himselfFor the details, see on Ac1:18.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple,…. Upon the ground, in that part of the temple where they were sitting; in their council chamber, , “the paved chamber”, where the sanhedrim used to meet m: for it seems they would not take the money of him; and he was determined not to carry it back with him, and therefore threw it down before them, left it,
and departed; from the sanhedrim: and went; out of the temple; not to God, nor to the throne of his grace, nor to his master, to ask pardon of him, but to some secret solitary place, to cherish his grief and black despair,
and hanged himself. The kind and manner of his death, as recorded by Luke in Ac 1:18 is, that “falling headlong, he burst asunder the midst, and all his bowels gushed out”; which account may be reconciled with this, by supposing the rope, with which he hanged himself, to break, when falling; it may be, from a very high place, upon a stone, or stump of a tree; when his belly burst, and his guts came out: or it may be rendered, as it is in the Arabic and Ethiopic versions, “he was strangled”; and that either by the devil, as Dr. Lightfoot thinks; who, having been in him for the space of two or three days, caught him up into the air, and threw him down headlong; and dashing him on the ground, he burst in the midst, and his bowels gushed out, and the devil made his exit that way: or by a disease called the squinancy, or quinsy, a suffocation brought upon him by excessive grief, deep melancholy, and utter despair; when being choked by it, he fell flat upon his face, and the rim of his belly burst, and his entrails came out. This disease the Jews call , “Iscara”; and if it was what he was subject to from his infancy, his parents might call him Iscariot from hence; and might be designed in providence to be what should bring him to his wretched end: and what is said of this suffocating disorder, seems to agree very well with the death of Judas. They say n, that
“it is a disease that begins in the bowels, and ends in the throat:”
they call death by it, , “an evil death” o; and say p, that
“there are nine hundred and three kinds of deaths in the world, but that , “the hardest of them all is Iscara”; which the Gloss calls “strangulament”, and says, is in the midst of the body:”
they also reckon it, , “a violent death” q; and say r, that the spies which brought a bad report of the good land, died of it. Moreover, they affirm s, that
“whoever tastes anything before he separates (i.e. lights up the lamp on the eve of the sabbath, to distinguish the night from the day), shall die by “Iscara”, or suffocation.”
Upon which the Gloss says, this is
“measure for measure: he that satisfies his throat, or appetite, shall be choked: as it is said t he that is condemned to be strangled, either he shall be drowned in a river, or he shall die of a quinsy, this is “Iscara”.”
m T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 88. 2. n Gloss. in T. Bab. Sabbat, fol 33. 1. o T. Bab. Yebamot, fol. 62. 9. p Beracot, fol. 3. 1. q Gloss. in T. Bab. Taanith, fol. 19. 2. r T. Bab. Sota, fol. 35. 1. s T. Bab. Pesachim, fol. 105. 1. t T. Bab. Cetubot, fol. 30. 2.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Hanged himself (). Direct middle. His act was sudden after he hurled the money into the sanctuary ( ), the sacred enclosure where the priests were. The motives of Judas in the betrayal were mixed as is usually the case with criminals. The money cut a small figure with him save as an expression of contempt as the current price of a slave.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
In the temple. But the best reading is eijv ton naon, into the sanctuary. He cast the pieces over the barrier of the enclosure which surrounded the sanctuary, or temple proper, and within which only the priests were allowed, and therefore into the sanctuary.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
5. And he went away, and strangled himself. This is the price for which Satan sells the allurements by which he flatters wicked men for a time. He throws them into a state of fury, so that, voluntarily cutting themselves off from the hope of salvation, they find no consolation but in death. Though others would have permitted Judas to enjoy the thirty pieces of silver, by which he had betrayed Christ and his own salvation, he throws them down, and not only deprives himself of the use of them, but, along with the base reward of the death of Christ, he throws away also his own life. Thus, though God does not put forth his hand, wicked men are disappointed of their desires, so that, when they have obtained their wishes, they not only deprive themselves of the enjoyment of unsatisfying benefits, but even make cords for themselves. But though they are their own executioners by punishing themselves, they do not in any respect alleviate or diminish the severity of the wrath of God.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(5) He cast down the pieces of silver in the temple.The Greek word for Temple is that which specially denotes (as in Mat. 23:16; Mat. 26:61; Joh. 2:19), not the whole building, but the sanctuary, which only the priests could enter. They had stood, it would seem, talking with Judas before the veil or curtain which screened it from the outer court, and he hurled or flung it into the Holy Place.
Hanged himself.The word is the same as that used of Ahithophel, in the Greek version of 2Sa. 17:23, and is a perfectly accurate rendering. Some difficulties present themselves on comparing this brief record with Act. 1:18, which will be best examined in the Notes on that passage. Briefly, it may be said here that the horrors there recorded may have been caused by the self-murderers want of skill, or the trembling agony that could not tie the noose firm enough.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
5. Hanged himself There is no discrepancy between this account and the narrative given in Act 1:18. Judas hung himself near one of the precipices with which the environs of Jerusalem abound, and the rope breaking, perhaps intentionally on his part, he was precipitated down and dashed to pieces. On this point Prof. Hackett says: “I measured the precipitous, almost perpendicular walls in different places, and found the height to be, variously, forty, thirty-six, thirty-three, thirty, and twenty-five feet. Olive trees still grow quite near the edge of these rocks, and, no doubt, in former times they were still more numerous in the same place. A rocky pavement exists also at the bottom of the precipices; and hence, on that account, a person who should fall from above would be liable to be crushed and mangled as well as killed. The traitor may have struck in his fall upon some pointed rock and caused ‘his bowels to gush out.’“
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘And he cast down the pieces of silver into the sanctuary, and departed, and he went away and hanged himself.’.
Having failed to persuade the Chief Priests to accept the money back, which would have been tantamount to thereby admitting that they shared his guilt, Judas took the next best step and brought the money to the Sanctuary. It was a recognised method of repudiating a transaction that when the price could not be handed back to the original party to a contract within the deadline contained in the contract, it could instead be paid over to the Temple, who would hold it on the missing recipient’s behalf. Perhaps Judas had this in mind. If they would not receive the money, then he would make them take it. So he approached the Sanctuary and hurled the thirty pieces of silver down, possibly through the very doorway of the Sanctuary. It was not quite in accordance with official procedure, but it was the only way that he could at least partly purge his screaming conscience. And then he abruptly left and went and hanged himself.
There is a vivid description of the result of this hanging in Act 1:18, which suggests that he hung himself by putting the rope round his neck and jumping over a precipice or from a tree, with the awful result that the rope broke and his body crashed to the ground and ‘burst open’. Alternately as his body hung there the hot sun might have brought about a quick decomposition of the body (no one would want to touch a dead body during the Feast until it was absolutely necessary, whatever the other requirements) so that it may have rotted, and thus eventually have fallen with awful results. It was the kind of thing that would be seen as a sign from God, although that is only hinted at, not stated. Note the contrast with the careful anointing and burial of the body of Jesus (Mat 26:6-13; Mat 27:57-60). Judas was left accursed, but God was watching over His Son.
‘And he departed (anechowresen) and went (apelthown).’ There may be a reflection here of Mat 2:22-23, ‘he departed (anechowresen) — and went (elthown). For as we have seen Mat 27:3 probably reflects Mat 2:16, and both these passages centre on quotations from Jeremiah.
‘Hanged himself.’ He had accepted Jesus’ verdict that it would have been better if he had not been born (Mat 26:24).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Mat 27:5. And went and hanged himself When Judas found that he could not prevent the horrid effects of his treachery, his conscience lashed him more furiously than before, suggesting thoughts which by turns made the deepest wounds in his soul. His Master’s innocence and benevolence, the usefulness of his life, the favoursthat he had received from him, with many other considerations, crowded into his mind, and racked him to such a degree, that his torment became intolerable. Wherefore, unable to sustain the misery of those agonizing passions and reflections, he makes a full confession of his Master’s innocence, returns the wages of iniquity, and goes and hangs himself. St. Peter seems to give a different account of the traitor’s death:Falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out, Act 1:18. And to reconcile the two passages, Tob 3:10 is commonly brought to prove that the word , in St. Matthew, may signify suffocation with grief, in consequence of which a man’s bowels may gush out; and instances are cited from Virgil, Eclogue Mat 7:26.:
Invidia rumpantur ut ilia Codro. and from Josephus, Antiq. 15. 100: 13 where one Zenodorus is mentioned, who is supposed to have died in this manner. The Talmudists make such a suffocation the punishment usually inflicted by God upon such persons as bore false witness against their neighbour. But as the above-quoted instances may be otherwise understood, it is more natural to suppose that Judas hanged himself on some tree growing out of a precipice, and that the branch breaking, or the knot of the rope wherewith he hanged himself opening, he fell down headlong, and dashed himself to pieces, so that his bowels gushed out. St. Peter’s phrase, , he burst asunder, favours this conjecture; for signifies properly lacero cum strepitu, to rend or tear with a noise or cracking, and so may imply that Judas burst asunder by falling from an height. See Le Clerc, Grotius, and Wetstein. Thus perished Judas Iscariot the traitor,a miserable example of the fatal influence of covetousness and worldly passions, and a standing monument of the divine vengeance, fit to deter future generations from acting contraryto conscience through love of the world; for which this unhappy wretch betrayed his Master, Friend, and Saviour, and cast away his own soul!
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Mat 27:5 ] is to be taken neither in the sense of near the temple (Kypke), nor as referring to the room, Gasith , in which the Sanhedrim held its sittings (Grotius), nor as equivalent to (Fritzsche, Olshausen, Bleek); but, in accordance with the regular use of (see on Mat 4:5 ) and the only possible meaning of , we must interpret thus: he flung down the money in the temple proper , i.e. in the holy place where the priests were to be found. Judas in his despair had ventured within that place which none but priests were permitted to enter.
] he strangled himself . Hom. Od . xix. 230; Herod. vii. 232; Xen. Cyrop . iii. 1. 14; Hier. vii. 13; Aesch. Suppl . 400; Ael. V. H . v. 3. There is no reason why the statement in Act 1:18 should compel us to take as denoting, in a figurative sense, an awakening of the conscience (Grotius, Perizonius, Hammond, Heinsius), for although is sometimes so used by classical authors (Dem. 406, 5; and see the expositors, ad Thom. Mag . p. 8), such a meaning would be inadmissible here, where we have no qualifying term, and where the style is that of a plain historical narrative (comp. 2Sa 17:23 ; Tob 3:10 ). With a view to reconcile what is here said with Act 1:18 , it is usual to assume that the traitor first hanged himself, and then fell down headlong , Matthew being supposed to furnish the first, and Luke the second half of the statement (Kuinoel, Fritzsche, Olshausen, Kaeuffer, Paulus, Ebrard, Baumgarten
Crusius). But such a way of parcelling out this statement, besides being arbitrary in itself, is quite inadmissible, all the more so that it is by no means clear from Act 1:18 that suicide had been committed. Now as suicide was regarded by the Jews with the utmost abhorrence, it would for that very reason have occupied a prominent place in the narrative instead of being passed over in silence. It has been attempted to account for the absence of any express mention of suicide, by supposing that the historian assumed his readers to be familiar with the fact. But if one thing forbids such an explanation more than another, it is the highly rhetorical character of the passage in the Acts just referred to, which, rhetorical though it be, records, for example, the circumstance of the purchase of the field with all the historical fidelity of Matthew himself, the only difference being that Luke’s mode of representing the matter is almost poetical in its character (in opposition to Strauss, Zeller, de Wette, Ewald, Bleek, Pressens, Paret, Keim, all of whom concur with Paulus in assuming, in opposition to Matthew, that Judas bought the field himself). Comp. on Act 1:18 . In Mat 27:5 and Act 1:18 , we have two different accounts of the fate of the betrayer, from which nothing further is to be gathered by way of historical fact than that he came to a violent end. In the course of subsequent tradition, however, this violent death came to be represented sometimes as suicide by means of hanging (Matthew, Ignatius, ad Philipp. interpol . 4), at a later stage again as a fall resulting in the bursting of the bowels, or at a later period still as the consequence of his having been crushed by a carriage when the body was in a fearfully swollen condition (Papias as quoted by Oecumenius, ad Act. l.c. , and by Apollinaris in Routh’s reliquiae sacr . p. 9, 23 ff.; also in Cramer’s Catena , p. 231; Overbeck in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschr . 1867, p. 39 ff.; Anger, Synops . p. 233). There is no other way of accounting for so many diverse traditions regarding this matter, but by supposing that nothing was known as to how the death actually took place. Be this as it may, we cannot entertain the view that Judas sunk into obscurity , and so disappeared from history, but that meanwhile the Christian legends regarding him were elaborated out of certain predictions and typical characters (Strauss, Keim, Scholten) found in Scripture (in such passages as Psa 109:8 ; Psa 69:25 ); such a view being inadmissible, because it takes no account of what is common to all the New Testament accounts, the fact, namely, that Judas died a violent death, and that very soon after the betrayal; and further, because the supposed predictions (Psalms 69, 109, Psa 69:20 ) and typical characters (such as Ahithophel, 2Sa 15:30 ff; 2Sa 17:23 ; Antiochus, 2Ma 9:5 ff.) did not help to create such stories regarding the traitor’s death, but it would be nearer the truth to say that they were subsequently taken advantage of by critics to account for the stories after they had originated.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
5 And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.
Ver. 5. And he cast down the pieces of silver ] That wage of wickedness burnt in his purse, in his conscience; neither could it secure him in the day of wrath. See Zep 1:18 ; Eze 7:19 ; Oba 1:4 Jas 4:1-2 . Omnia fui, et nihil mihi profitit, I had everything and it profited my nothing, said Severus the emperor, when he lay dying. Most of the emperors got nothing by their advancement to the empire, whereof they were so ambitious, but this, Ut citius interficerentur, that they were slain the sooner. All, or most of them, till Constantine, died unnatural deaths. Achan’s wedge of gold served but to cleave asunder his soul from his body; and the Babylonish garment but for a shroud.
And went and hanged himself ] If you confess yourself to a priest, and not to God, said that martyr, you shall have the reward that Judas had. For he confessed himself to a priest, and yet went and hanged himself by-and-by. So did Porter, townclerk of London in Henry VIII’s time, who had before sworn a great oath, that if the king’s highness would set forth the Scripture in English, and let it be read of the people by his authority, rather than he would so long live, he would cut his own throat. But he brake promise: for shortly after he hanged himself. And about the same time, Foxford, chancellor to the bishop of London, a cruel persecutor and butcher of the saints, died suddenly in his chair, his belly being burst, and his guts falling out before him; as likewise Judas’ did, Cum quodam singulari crepitus fragore, as the word imports, Act 1:18 . Selneccerus makes mention of a covetous bishop of Misna in Germany, who had the devil for his death’s man. And Dr Morton, late bishop of Durham, reports a story of his own knowledge, of one Sir Booth, a Bachelor of Arts in St John’s College in Cambridge, who, being popishly affected, took the consecrated bread at the time of the communion; and forbearing to eat it, conveyed and kept it closely for a time, and afterwards threw it over the college wall. But a short time after, not enduring the torment of his guilty conscience, he threw himself headlong over the battlements of the chapel, and some few hours after ended his life. “The spirit of a man may sustain his infirmity:” some shift or other a man may make to suffer whatsoever other calamities, “but a wounded spirit who can bear?”Pro 18:14Pro 18:14 : there is no fighting with a mighty fire, no bearing up sail against a storm. Job, when once wet to the skin, curseth the day of his birth, and thinketh it better to be strangled or hanged than longer to endure it, Job 7:15 . And yet God was but in jest, as it were, with Job, in comparison of Judas.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
5. ] in the holy place , where the priests only might enter. We must conceive him as speaking to them without, and throwing the money into the .
] hanged, or strangled himself. On the account given Act 1:18 , see note there. Another account of the end of Judas was current, which I have cited there.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Mat 27:5 . : not in that part of the temple where the Sanhedrim met (Grotius), or in the temple at large, in a place accessible to laymen (Fritzsche, Bleek), or near the temple (Kypke), but in the holy place itself (Meyer, Weiss, Schanz, Carr, Morison); the act of a desperate man determined they should get the money, and perhaps hoping it might be a kind of atonement for his sin. , strangled himself; usually reconciled with Act 1:18 by the supposition that the rope broke. The suggestion of Grotius that the verb points to death from grief (“non laqueo sed moestiti”) has met with little favour.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
in. Greek. en. App-104. But all the texts read eis = into (vi) the Sanctuary, over the barrier into the Sanctuary.
Temple = the Sanctuary. Greek. naos. See note on Mat 23:16.
hanged himself. Greek. apagchomai. Occurs only here. Act 1:18 describes what took place, in consequence, afterward. He must have been hanging before he could “fall forward”. See note there. Greek. apagcho. Occurs only here (Mat 27:5) in N.T. Septuagint for hanak. 2Sa 17:23, only of Ahithophel, the type of Judas (Psa 55:14, Psa 55:15). See note on Act 1:18.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
5. ] in the holy place, where the priests only might enter. We must conceive him as speaking to them without, and throwing the money into the .
] hanged, or strangled himself. On the account given Act 1:18, see note there. Another account of the end of Judas was current, which I have cited there.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Mat 27:5. , casting down) in the disquietude of his mind.[1174]- , in the Temple) Judas was therefore in the Temple, with the chief priests and elders; and, in order to soothe his troubled conscience any how, attempted to give his money to the Sacred Treasury. The part of the Temple where this took place is unknown. The word , which, strictly speaking, signifies a shrine, is employed here in a wider signification, for , temple.-, strangled himself with a noose) which is usually done by hanging. The same expression is used by the LXX. in 2Sa 17:23, concerning Ahitophel, whom some, however, suppose to have died of the quinsey as well as Iscariot. Raphelius has diligently established the interpretation of hanging from Polybius, etc.; see also Gnomon on Act 1:18.
[1174] That very thing which had previously proved a bait to the sinner, subsequently causes him the deepest sorrow.-B. G. V.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
and departed: Jdg 9:54, 1Sa 31:4, 1Sa 31:5, 2Sa 17:23, 1Ki 16:18, Job 2:9, Job 7:15, Psa 55:23, Act 1:18, Act 1:19
Reciprocal: Num 22:34 – I Have sinned Deu 19:10 – General 2Sa 18:9 – his head 2Sa 21:6 – hang 2Ki 6:33 – this evil is of the Lord 1Ch 10:4 – Saul took Job 15:22 – He believeth not Psa 37:15 – sword Psa 55:15 – Let death Psa 69:27 – Add Psa 109:8 – his days Pro 1:18 – General Pro 11:5 – direct Pro 12:8 – he Pro 17:13 – General Pro 28:13 – and forsaketh Pro 28:17 – General Jer 20:4 – I will make Dan 3:22 – slew Luk 10:20 – in this Luk 22:22 – but Joh 15:6 – he Act 16:27 – he drew 2Co 7:10 – the sorrow Gal 3:13 – for
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
27:5
Casting the pieces of silver down in the temple indicated that Judas was offering the money to the sacred service as “conscience money.”
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.
[Hanged himself.] Strangulatus est, was strangled; namely, by the devil, who had now been in him three days together. The words of Peter, Act 1:18; do not suffer me to understand this of hanging himself. Falling headlong he burst asunder in the midst. Interpreters take a great deal of pains to make these words agree with his hanging himself; but indeed all will not do. I know the word is commonly applied to a man’s hanging himself; but not to exclude some other way of strangling. And I cannot but take the story (with good leave of antiquity) in this sense: After Judas had thrown down the money, the price of his treason, in the Temple, and was now returning again to his mates, the devil, who dwelt in him, caught him up on high, strangled him, and threw him down headlong; so that dashing upon the ground, he burst in the midst, and his guts issued out, and the devil went out in so horrid an exit. This certainly agrees very well with the words of Peter now mentioned, and also with those that follow, “This was known to all that dwelt at Jerusalem.” It agrees also very well with the deserts of the wicked wretch, and with the title of Iscariot. The wickedness he had committed was above all example, and the punishment he suffered was beyond all precedent. There had been many instances of persons who had hanged themselves; this would not so much have stirred up the people of Jerusalem to take notice of it, as such a strangling and throwing down headlong, which we suppose horrible above measure, and singular beyond example. See what we have said at the tenth chapter concerning the word Iscariot.
Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels
Mat 27:5. Flung down, with violence.
In the sanctuary, i.e., the holy place. Either he stood just outside and spoke to the priests, who were in the holy place, or in his despair had even entered this forbidden place. In Gods temple lay the money for which Gods Son had been sold to death, as a testimony against the Jews.
And departed. Lange thinks into solitude, as if to lead a hermits life, a frequent effect of remorse; but it probably refers to the terror which drove him away, as if from danger.And went away. Probably from the temple, or from his retirement, if he did retire.
Hanged himself. This is to be taken literally, and occurred shortly afterwards. Peter, a few weeks afterwards (Act 1:18-19), speaks of his death as well known. That passage shows that the suicide took place in the field spoken of in Mat 27:7-8; supposed to have been on the steep face of the southern hill, opposite Mount Zion, which bounds the valley of Hinnom. It would seem that Judas hanged himself over the precipice, fell headlong in consequence of the rope or branch breaking, struck on one of the sharp projecting rocks so common there, and lay burst asunder in the field below, which he may be said to have obtained (Act 1:18), because it was bought with his reward of iniquity, and he himself the first one buried there. Matthews account is part of a history, Lukes account part of a speech to those who were acquainted with the facts. The former naturally brings into prominence the conduct of the priests, the latter looks at the death of Judas in the light of the Apostleship he had lost.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Verse 5
It has been supposed that the consternation which Judas manifested when he saw the fruits of what he had done, proves that he did not anticipate these fatal consequences, when he conducted the officers to the retreat of the Savior. But this is by no means certain. It is the very nature of crime, that a deed should be undertaken deliberately, and with hardened unconcern, Which, when done, overwhelms the so with remorse and horror.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
27:5 And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and {a} departed, and went and hanged himself.
(a) Out of the sight of men.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Judas threw the 30 pieces of silver that he had received for betraying Jesus into the temple sanctuary. Perhaps Judas thought he could atone for his sin to some extent with this gift. Then he went out and hanged himself (cf. 2Sa 17:23 LXX). Many scholars believe this was in the region of gehenna, the city dump of Jerusalem, near the confluence of the Kidron and Hinnom valleys south of the city.
The chief priests properly refused to receive the silver into the temple treasury (cf. Deu 23:18). Here again they appear scrupulous about ritual observance of the Law while at the same time they failed to defend what is more important, namely, the innocence of Jesus (cf. Mat 12:9-14; Mat 15:1-9; Mat 23:23: Mat 28:12-13). They decided to use the money for a public project, a graveyard for foreigners. The place they used had evidently been an area of land from which potters obtained their clay but which by now had become depleted.
The account of Judas’ death in Act 1:18-19 is slightly different, but it is easy to harmonize the two stories. Probably the chief priests bought the grave with Judas’ money. Judas evidently hanged himself, and then the corpse apparently fell to the ground and burst open. Perhaps the branch from which he hanged himself broke, or his body may have fallen when it began to decompose. The place of his suicide could have received the name "field of blood" before or after Judas’ death. If it was before, Judas may have chosen to kill himself on the field that his money had purchased. It seems more likely, however, that the Sanhedrin purchased the field sometime after the events of this night.