p. 2 | 3116.-Death of Judas

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · May 3, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 17.

3116.—Death of Judas

Please harmonize Matt. 27:5, 8 and Acts 1:18. (1) In Matthew the thought is conveyed that the priests bought the field, and in Acts it appears that Judas purchased it. (2) Another seeming contradiction is that Matthew conveys the idea that Judas hung himself. In Acts another expression is that he threw himself down some precipice and was burst open, which would not likely occur if he hung himself.

W. P. M. L.

1. What a man does through his agency he is said to do himself. Take for instance Nathan's words to David: "Thou hast smitten Uriah the Hittite with the sword, . . . and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon." 2 Sam. 12:9. Now David did not slay Uriah with the sword himself. The latter part of the verse explains the first part. So the money that Judas furnished purchased the field; the price for which he sold his Lord was used for the purchase of the ground, and in that way Judas is said to have purchased the field.

2. We see nothing inconsistent whatever with Judas so hanging himself that from that hanging he fell, and in falling burst asunder. In the rocky declivities and precipices around Jerusalem, he might have hanged himself, and in the very hanging the rope might have broken, and he, falling over some precipice, burst asunder as recorded in Acts 1:18. There are three or four suppositions which would make it very clear that there need be no contradiction.