5 And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.

d 2 Sam. xvii.

23. Acts i. 18.

6 And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.

He must have brought back the money before the Crucifixion in order that the effects of his crime might be prevented; but the answer of the chief priests, if possible more wicked than himself, "What is that to us? see thou to that," shut him up to despair. "He cast down the silver picces in [or into] the temple," most probably in the sanctuary, for the Sadducean priests would have no scruple about admitting him into any part of the temple which suited their convenience.

"And went and hanged himself." There are two considerable differences between this account of the death of Judas and that of St. Peter as given by St. Luke in Acts i.

(1). The field is there described as having been purchased by Judas himself before his death; here it is said to have been purchased by the priests: but the bargain for it may have been made by Judas immediately on his receiving the money, and the payment not actually made, and so the chief priests completed the purchase of a piece of ground which served their purpose by paying the money.

(2). Judas, according to St. Matthew, hung himself; according to St. Luke, "falling down headlong, he burst asunder, and his bowels gushed out;" but the latter account seems to require for its possibility something like the former. By any ordinary fall on the ground he would not burst asunder, or, as we express it, be ruptured; but if he fell from some height, which he must have done, it is not at all improbable that what St. Peter describes took place.

6. "And the chief priests . . . . price of blood." See the fearful hypocrisy of these men. They had no scruple about paying thirty pieces of silver to bring about the death of an innocent man, but they had strong religious scruples about putting the same coin into the treasury. It is of the very essence of hypocrisy to outrage the moral feelings, and at the same time religiously practise some genuflection, some washing, some "touch not, taste not, handle not," which can be as punctiliously observed by a murderer as by a righteous man.

7 And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in.

e

8 Wherefore that field was called, The field of Acts i. 19.

blood, unto this day.

13.

9 Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, 'And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, || whom they of the children of Israel did value;

Zech. xi. 12, Or, whom they bought of the children of Israel.

7. "The potter's field, to bury strangers in." An old buryingplace close to Jerusalem, agreeing in locality with the traditional situation of the "field of blood," has within the last few years been discovered containing skulls, not of the prevailing Jewish type, but of strangers of all nations. I cannot remember the article or book in which I read this, but I am certain as to the fact.

9. "Then was fulfilled that which was spoken .... the Lord appointed me." These verses present very great difficulties: (1) A prophecy of Jeremiah is cited, whereas no such words, or words at all like them, are found in Jeremiah; and (2) the place in Zechariah which does contain a few similar words is so very different, both in the Hebrew and the Septuagint, that those expositors may well be pardoned who have supposed that we have here some lost utterance of Jeremiah.

If the prophecy as cited in St. Matthew is compared with that in Zechariah, it will be seen that, though in both mention is made of thirty pieces of silver, and of a potter, yet otherwise there is scarcely a word in common. In the Hebrew there is no mention of the potter's field; on the contrary, the money is cast to the potter in the house of the Lord. In the Hebrew, also, there is a very faint echo indeed of the words of St. Matthew: "the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value."

The difficulty of reconciling the present Hebrew text with St. Matthew's quotation, in our present state of knowledge, seems insuperable. There must have been some peculiar difficulty about the passage at the time of the Septuagint translators, who had a very different Hebrew text before them in verse 13 of the Hebrew, for they render it, "And the Lord said, Drop them into the furnace, and I will see if it is good metal, as I was proved for their sakes."

10 And gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me.

The difficulty respecting St. Matthew ascribing the quotation to the wrong prophet can only weigh with those who hold the narrowest view of verbal inspiration. If the Evangelist wrote the word Jeremiah, meaning Zechariah, it only shows that that Inspiration of the Holy Ghost which enabled him to give an account of the Life and Miracles and Sayings of Jesus Christ, which, in its combination, gives us the most perfect view of the Lord on record, was not vouchsafed to save him from slips of memory, which any ordinary reader of the New Testament can correct for himself. It may be that if we had his very autograph preserved to us we should find in it many such mistakes. but only bringing out more forcibly the word of the Spirit as applicable to the service of all God's servants: "We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." (2 Cor. iv. 7.)

Many very ingenious conjectures have been put forth to do away with the difficulty, as that Jeremiah was the first on the roll of the Prophetical Books, so that by "Jeremiah the Prophet" might be meant any prophet in that roll; that some of the later prophecies of Zechariah were written by Jeremiah; that the seeming mistake of the name was intentional, and overruled to show that the prophets spake not of themselves, but One Spirit spake in all of them. But is it not better to believe that the Inspiration of the Evangelists was not given to save them from those natural mistakes of grammar, geography, chronology, citation, &c., into which all writers who are very full of their subject naturally fall; but to enable them to give that view of the Person, Life, and Acts of His Son, which was according to the Will of the Father, and which consequently would only be given by the special guidance of the Spirit Who knew His Will? Even supposing that St. Matthew's autograph was perfectly free from all such minor errors, it would avail nothing, unless those who copied it were equally preserved from the liability to such mistakes.

The field was a field to bury strangers in. As Isaac Williams says: "The price of Jesus' Blood was not to enrich the temple of the Jews, but to supply a resting-place for the Gentiles, to receive their bodies till the general Resurrection." And Augustine says: "For those strangers who, without home or country, are tossed

h

Mark xv. 2.

Luke xxiii. 3.

11 And Jesus stood before the governor: and the governor asked him, saying, Art thou the King of the Jews? And Jesus said unto him, Thou sayest. 12 And when he was accused of the chief priests and elders, he answered nothing.

John xviii. 33. 37. 1 Tim.

h John xviii.

vi. 13. i cb. xxvi. 63. John xix. 9.

about the world as exiles, for whom rest is provided by the Blood of Christ."

11. "And Jesus stood before the governor." Before this we must insert the account of proceedings which are given in John xviii. 28-36, how the chief priests and other Jews, who delivered our Lord to Pilate, stood without the hall; how Pilate went out to them; how they endeavoured to get our Lord condemned simply on their own word that He was a malefactor; how Pilate, on the contrary, endeavoured to shift the responsibility on them, "Take ye him, and judge him;" how they, on this, disclaimed all power of life and death; how Pilate questioned Christ about His Kingship, and received the answer, "My kingdom is not of this world;" how Pilate saw at once that He spake of a spiritual kingdom, and brought Him out again to the Jews with the words, "I find no fault in Him." Then, in their further accusation, mention is made of Galilee, which presented the opportunity for Pilate to send Him to Herod. Then Pilate's second calling of the chief priests and rulers and the people, as given by St. Luke (xxiii. 13-23), seems to correspond with the very short notice of the proceedings which St. Matthew gives.

"Art thou the King of the Jews?" Our Lord, though He had allowed Nathaniel to call Him King of Israel, and though He had, as King of Israel, received the Hosannahs of the multitude, had never specially claimed to be the "King of the Jews." It arose out of His general claim to be the Messiah, and was put forward by the chief priests as the part of the Messianic claims which would be most obnoxious to the Roman governor.

"Thou sayest" means really, "Thou sayest what is true-what is the fact." It is a strong affirmation.

12. “When he was accused of the chief priests and elders, he answered nothing." This silence of our Lord to the accusations of the chief priests before Pilate is noticed only by Matthew and Mark. Among "the many things" were "perverting the nation (Luke

k

13 Then said Pilate unto him, Hearest thou not how

ch. xxvi. 62. many things they witness against thee?

John xix. 10.

14 And he answered him to never a word; somuch that the governor marvelled greatly.

in

1 Mark xv. 6.

Luke xxiii. 17.

15 'Now at that feast the governor was wont

John xviii. 39. to release unto the people a prisoner, whom they

would.

16 And they had then a notable prisoner, called Barabbas,

15. Alford translates this, "at every feast," and Syriac, quolibet autem festo. It seems however, unlikely as I have shown below.

xxiii. 2), forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar," that He was a malefactor, that He called Himself the Son of God.

14. "The governor marvelled greatly." His silence astonished Pilate. He could not, however, have done otherwise than maintain silence, for the things which they witnessed against Him, of being Christ a King and the King of the Jews, could not be refuted by Him, except by such an explanation as He had already given, " My kingdom is not of this world." Pilate, hearing this, had gone out and said, "I find no fault in this man," and there the matter must end. No further explanation of the nature of the kingdom could be given to a heathen. The Jews knew full well that if He was the Messiah He claimed to be, He was a Divine and Supernatural Sovereign in a far higher sense than any other leader of men had ever been. He had satisfied Pilate that His kingdom, whatever it was, in no way interfered with the imperial power of Cæsar. He could not say more before Pilate, but He could not deny His Messianic claims to the priests. In fact, it was because, as the Christ, He claimed a kingdom not of this world, that they hated Him and endeavoured to destroy His influence among the people.

15. "Now at that feast." Some have translated this as if it meant any feast, because the word "feast" is without the article, "at a feast; "but considering that the Jews had four or five great feasts, it is very unlikely that they could demand at each one the release of any criminal they chose. The custom of releasing a prisoner to the people was probably derived from the Roman occupation. It is not elsewhere alluded to.

16. "They had then a notable prisoner, called Barabbas." It appears that in a very few manuscripts, none of them of any great