TRANSLATION MATTHEW 27;1

When morning came. all the chief priests and the elders of the people, took counsel together against Jesus, to put him to death. And they bound him, led him off and handed him over to Pilate the Governor.

Then Judas, the one who betrayed him, seeing that Jesus was condemned, changed his mind and brought back the 30 silver pieces to the high priest and the elders, saying, “I have sinned in betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What’s that to us? You see to it.”

He threw down the silver in the Temple, and went away and hanged himself.

After the high priests had collected the money, they said, “It is not lawful to put these into the treasury for it is the price of blood.” They discussed the matter and bought with them the potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners. That is the reason it is called the Field of Blood to this day. Then what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled,

“They took 30 silver pieces, the price of a man on whose head a price had been set by some of the Israelites, and gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord had bidden me.”

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Firstly we have an editorial passage by Matthew which gets Jesus to Pilate. This is significant because although claiming to be Messiah was not automatically judged as blasphemy, there is little doubt that Pilate would see it as a serious crime worthy of death. Matthew is concerned to show the responsibility of Jewish people for Jesus’ death, and he may underplay the responsibility of Rome.

Then there is a unique story of the death of Judas and its connection with a burial place called the “field of blood”:also mentioned in Acts 1, which has a different version of Judas’ death.

Matthew’s version allows Judas a genuine repentance, before he ends his own life. This is not taken seriously by any other gospel writer, or indeed by later Christian tradition in which Judas is seen as damned.

The reaction of the chief priests to his repentance is in character, as is their nice legalism over the use of the money in contrast to their permissiveness with regard to their own use of bribery.

Matthew can be a little vague in his use of bible quotation but this one is a whopper. It’s not really much to do with Jeremiah, but a slightly garbled version of Zechariah 11:12-13. There are connections with other biblical passages as well. For Matthew, the important thing is that the biblical link shows that God is in control of the terrible events he is narrating.

The link with God is if course the ultimate source of Jesus’ magical ministry and sacrificial death.