428 excii. Judas repents when Jesus is condemned. SECT. tations; and under how many engagements rather to have bathed his wounds with our tears, and even to have exposed our own hearts to the sharpest weapon by which the madness of sinners might have attempted to injure him. Mark John xv. 46. The boldness of Joseph, and even of Nicodemus himself, deserves xv. 43. our notice on such an occasion. They are not ashamed of the inxix. 39. famy of his cross, but come with all holy reverence and affection Mark to take down those sacred remains of Jesus; nor did they think the finest linen, or the choicest spices, too valuable on such an occaJohn sion. But who can describe their consternation and distress when xix. 40. they saw him, who they trusted should have delivered Israel, a cold and bloody corpse in their arms; and left him in the sepulchre of Joseph, whom they expected to have seen on the throne of David? Mat. We leave for the present his enemies in triumph, and his friends in tears, till his resurrection; which soon confounded the rage of the former, and revived the hopes of the latter; hopes which must otherwise have been for ever intombed under that stone with which they now covered him. But happy and comfortable is the thought that this his transient visit to the grave has (as it were) left a perfume in the bed of dust, and reconciled the believer to dwelling a while in the place where the Lord lay! xxvii. 60 cxciii. SECT. CXCIII. Judas confessing his guilt, returns the money he had received from the chief priests, and then hangs himself. The Jews the next day demand, and procure a guard to be set on Christ's sepulchre. Mat. XXVII. 3-10, 62, to the end. MAT. XXVII. 3. MAT. XXVII. 3. brought SECT. AVING thus finished the account of the THEN Judas which HA had betrayed him, death of Jesus, it may be convenient here when he saw that he Mat. to mention the miserable end of that perfidious was condemned, reXXVII. disciple by whom he was betrayed into the pented himself, and 3 hands of his enemies. The Jewish rulers having delivered Jesus to the Roman governor, and having prevailed upon him to give orders for his execution, then Judas, who had betrayed him, when he saw to his surprise that he was condemned by Pilate, and that they were leading him forth to die upon the cross, to which he seemed determined to submit, though he could so easily have rescued himself from it, was seized with great a Then Judas, &c.] For the proper place of this story, which is here inserted out of its order, see note a on John xix. 16, p. 400. terror Matthew has introduced it immediately after the Jews had delivered Jesus to Pilate'; but after this the Jews were so intent on per 4 Saying, I have sinned, in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that. 429 SECT. He throws down the money, and goes and hangs himself. brought again the thir- terror and agony of conscience; and repenting ty pieces of silver to of the fatal bargain he had made, whereby he cxciii. the chief priests and elders, had brought such a load of guilt on his own Mat. soul, he carried back the thirty pieces of silver XXVII. which they had given him to the chief priests 3 and the elders, while they were together in the temple that morning; for they resorted thither with a specious appearance of piety, before they followed the multitude to Calvary to see the execution. And coming in among them in 4 a wild disorder, he said to them, Oh Sirs! I have sinned in a most desperate manner, in that I have betrayed innocent blood to you; for I am well convinced, that Jesus my Master has done nothing to deserve this punishment to which you have delivered him; and I am not able to bear the thought of the concern I have had in it. And they answered with the steady coolness of those who knew no shame or remorse for their wickedness, What [is that] to us, whether thou thinkest him innocent or not? See thou [to that] it is sufficient for us that we know he is guilty, whether such a wretch as thou art approvest or condemnest our sentence. And 5 throwing down the pieces of silver money in the temple, in their very presence, with all the marks of agony and distress, he withdrew; and going away to the brow of a hill, in some retired and melancholy place, he there hanged himself; but the rope breaking by the force with which he threw himself off, he fell down the precipice, and burst asunder with the force of his fall, so that all his bowels gushed out; and he lay expiring 5 And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and de parted, and went and hanged himself. persuading Pilate to consent to his death, that there was hardly time for the sanhedrim's adjourning to the temple, where this occurrence happened, before they had prevailed with Pilate to condemn him: and as Judas must have often heard his Master say be should be crucified, Pilate's order for his execution must have more seusibly affected him than the Jews passing sentence on him, who had not then the power of putting any one to death.-The word ri, then, with which the evangelist begins this story, may be taken in some latitude to introduce the mention of an occurrence which happened about that time, whether a little before or after, and need not be interpreted with so much rigour us to determine it to an assertion of observing the exactest order in all circumstances. See note a on Mat. xxvii. 27, p. 390. b And going away, he hanged himself; but the rope breaking, &c.] This method which Mr. Le Clerc, (Harm. p. 527) and several other learned critics, have taken, of reconciling Matthew with what is afterwards said of this fact (Acts i. 18), that falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out); appears to me much preferable to that of those who would render anуžalo, he was stified, or suffocated, with excess of grief (see La Motte of Inspir. p. 155): a version, which none of the authorities I have seen seem sufficient to justify. Nor is it necessary to suppose with Dr. Lightfoot (Hor. Hebr. on Mat. xxvii. 5, and Acts i. 18), that Judas was carried away by the devil, and strangled in the air, and being thrown from thence in the sight of all the city, was dashed in pieces by the violence of the fall, 430 SECT. a The potters field is purchased with the money. piring, in a most painful and terrible manner, spectacle of horror to all that beheld him, alive, or dead, as a multitude of spectators did. (ComXXVII. pare Acts i. 18, 19.) cxciii. Mat. 6 price of blood. the chief And the chief priests, taking up the pieces of 6 And silver, were at some loss how they should dispose pieces, and said, It is priests took the silver of them; for they said, It is not lawful for us to not lawful for to put put them into the chest which is called Corban, them into the treaor the sacred treasury, because it is the price of sury, because it is the blood, and would in effect be offering to God the life of a man. And these hypocrites scrupled such a point of ceremony, while they still persisted in their resolution to destroy Jesus, which, if they had desired it, they might yet 7 have prevented. But afterwards, when they 7 And they took met in a body about some other business, hav- counsel, and bought ing consulted together what they should do with field, to bury strangers those pieces of money, they bought with them in. that close in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, which is called The potters field, for a buryingplace of foreigners who had no sepulchres of their own, and whose bodies they scrupled to lay ૪ 9 with them the potters with those of their own holy nation. And there- 8 Wherefore that 9 (Then was fulfilled that which was Then was that fulfilled in a very remarkable manner, which was spoken by the prophet, spoken by Jeremy the c The potters field.] Thirty pieces of silver may seem a very inconsiderable price for a field so near Jerusalem; but as Grotius well observes, the ground was probably much spoiled by digging it up for earth to make potters vessels; so that it was now unfit for tillage or pasture, and consequently of small value. d Which was spoken by the prophet] Most copies read it, by Jeremiah the prophet; yet it is universally known that these words are found no where in Jeremiah, but in Zechariah (chap. xi. 13): it appears to ine very unnatural to say with Dr. Lightfoot (Hor. Hebr. in loc.) that all the prophetic writings might be called the book of Jeremiah; because in ancient times the prophecy of Jeremiah was put at the beginning of the volume of the prophets: nor would the granting this fact account for the expression of its being spoken by him, Nor am I at all convinced by Mr. Joseph (Zech. pro Mede's reasonings (see his Works, p. 963), that these words, though recorded by Zechariah, or rather found in his book, were originally spoken by Jeremiah, and by some accident displaced: a principle on which the whole credit of the prophe cies might be destroyed. It would be a much less dishonour to the sacred writings, to suppose a small error in the pen of some early transcriber, who might (as Bishop Hall prettily conjectures), by the mistake of one letter only (supposing the word to be contracted), write Igie for Zai. And though it is certain that Jeremiah was the received reading, as early as Origen's time, yet there is room to doubt whether any prophet was named in the first copies, as the Syriack version, which is allowed to be made in the most early times, says only, It was spoken by the prophet, without mentioning by whom. On the whole, I think it more respectful to the evangelist, to And thus what Zechariah said was fulfilled. prophet, saying, And (Zech. xi. 13), saying," And I took the thirty they took the thirty 431 SECT. cxciii. pieces of silver, the pieces of silver" (which sum, the reader will price of him that was observe, was the usual price of one who was sold Mat. valued, whom they of for a slave, or of one whom the children of Israel XXVII. the children of Israel did sell, being esteemed among them on an 9 did value. 10 And gave them for the potters field, as the Lord appointed me.) MAT. XXVII. 62. Now average but the equitable price of such a one; And they were given for the potters field, as 10 (saith the prophet) the Lord commanded me in vision, in token of his just displeasure against those who had put such an affront on his pastoral caref." But to return now to the main story. When, 62 notwithstanding to suppose that some officious transcriber might either insert or change the prophet's name, than to impute it, as Dr. Mill seems to do, to a slip in the author's memory. The price of one who was sold, &c.] We may either render the words, [78 τελεμημένος, ον ετιμήσανίο από υίων Ισραηλ,] of one who was sold, even of one whom the children of Israel did sell; and so consider them as expressive of the common price a slave was rated at among them: or we may render them, of him that was sold, or valued (even their own Messiah) whom the very children of Israel sold at this shameful price. And I think, either of these versions would suit the original, and convey a lively and proper sense: I have therefore suggested beth in the paraphrase, though in the version, which could not well be equally ambiguous, I have preferred the former. And they were given for the potters field, as the Lord commanded me.] It is plain these words are not exactly quoted, either from the Hebrew or the Septuagint; yet I cannot think the difference so great, as it at first appears; since those words in the parenthesis (την τιμήν το το Τιμημένος, ον ετιμήσανία απο wy Ipanλ,) which are not in either, may be considered as the words of the evangelist himself (to which he was naturally led by those of the prophet, A goodly price that I was prized at of them); and if, which might easily happen, dwxay be written for doxa, as 6v is ambiguous, it may be rendered yet nearer to the original, I took-and gave them, &c.-As for the general propriety of applying these words to this occasion, I think it may well be vindicated; for the connection and sense of the prophecy in the Old Testament seems to be this. In order to represent to Zechariah the contempt which Israel put upon their God, he had a vision to the following purpose. He sat. thought God first appointed him to appear among them as a shepherd; (making him by that emblem a representation of himself:) after some time, he directs him to go to the rulers of Israel, and ask them, What they thought he deserved for his labour in that office? They give him the price of a slave, thirty pieces of silver; and this in the house of the Lord, where the court On this, God, as resenting this indignity offered to him in the person of his prophet, orders him to throw it down with disdain before the first poor labourer he met, who happened to be a potter at work by the temple gates, as a fitter price for a little of his paltry ware, than a suitable acknowledgment of the favours they had received from God. Now surely, if there was ever any circumstance in which the children of Israel behaved themselves so as to answer this visionary representation, it must be when they gave this very sum of thirty pieces of silver as a price for the life of that very Person whom God had appointed their great Shepherd. And, in order to point out the correspondence the more sensibly, Providence so ordered it, that the person to whom this money went should be a potter: though the prophecy would have been answered if he had been a fuller, or of any other profession. It may also be farther observed, that God's ceasing to be the Shepherd of Israel, which was represented by the prophet's breaking his pastoral staves, was never fully answered till their final rejection after the death of Christ; which may farther lead us to refer the affront of their giving the pieces of silver to this event. I do not reniember ever to have seen this matter set in, what seems to me, its just and most natural light; but Grotius has some valuable hints upon it, which I wonder he did not pursue farther, Afler 432 Mat. The priests desire to have the sepulchre secured; the preparation, the to Pilate. 63 Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. SECT. notwithstanding the confession of Judas, the Now the next day excii. Jews had crucified Christ, and his friends had that followed the day of taken down his body from the cross, and laid it chief priests and PhariXXVII. in Joseph's tomb on the evening of the sixth day sees came together un62 of the week. On the morrow, or on the sabbath itself, which followed the day of preparation, the chief priests, and other Pharisees who belonged to the grand sanhedrim, assembled together in a body to wait upon Pilate, as with an 63 address of solemn importance: Saying, Sir, we remember that this notorious deceiver, who was yesterday put to death for his crimes, and is well known to have practised many arts to impose upon the people while he was yet living, said, After three days I will rise again from the 64 deads: We desire therefore, that since his friends have been intrusted with the care of interring him, thou wouldst order that the sepulchre where he is laid may be strictly guarded and secured till the third day is past; lest his disciples should come by night and steal him away, and upon this should tell the people that, according to his own prediction, he is risen from the dead and so the last deceit will be worse than the first, and the deluded populace will be more eager to profess their regard to him after his death, than they ever were while he was living. 65 66 And Pilate said to them, You have a guard in waiting about your court in the temple; go your way therefore, and order as many of them as you think fit to march to the sepulchre, and to keep centry there all night, and thereby make [it] as secure as you possibly can. And accordingly they went and took a detachment of soldiers with them to the garden of Joseph; and having first satisfied themselves that the corpse was there, they secured the sepulchre as well as they possibly could, sealing the stone, that it might not be broke open without a discovery of the fraud; and also setting a guard After three days I will rise again.] Their intending to make the sepulchre secure only till the third day ended, shewed that they understood our Lord's expression of rising after three days to be (as indeed it was) equivalent to a declaration that he would rise on the third day. See note f on Mat. xii. 40. Vol. VI. p. 331. Compare also Deut xiv. 28, with xxvi. 12. b Having first satisfied themselves that near 64 Command there fore that the sepulchre third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, ple, he is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse be made sure until the and say unto the peo than the first. 65 Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch, go your way, make it as sure as you can. the corpse was there.] Common prudence would teach them to do this; and perhaps they might feed their cruelty with viewing the dead body, as Herodias did with that sad spectacle the baptist's head. See note 9 on Mark vi. 28, Vol. VI. p. 408. i Sealing the stone.] Some have conjectured they might also cement it with lead, or bind it with iron; but the sabbath would hardly have allowed this. The guard would prevent |