Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 1:20

"For it is written in the book of Psalms, Let his habitation be made desolate, And let no man dwell therein: and, His office let another take." — Acts 1:20 (ASV)

The OT passages Luke uses to support the divine necessity manifest in Judas’s defection and replacement are Ps 69:25 and 109:8. These psalms speak of false companions and wicked men who have become enemies of God’s righteous servant. They lament over his condition and give us his prayers for deliverance and his desire for retribution. Psalms 69 was applied variously within the early church to Jesus the Christ, the Servant of the Lord and Righteous Sufferer par excellence (v.9 is quoted in Jn 2:17 and Ro 15:3; vv.22–23 in Ro 11:9–10). So here in v.20 we have another example of the Christian use of this block of messianic material, to which, using the commonly accepted exegetical principle of analogous subject, Peter added the ominous words of Ps 109:8 in order to defend the legitimacy of replacing a member of the apostolic band.

We need not insist that the early Christians believed that the primary reference of these two psalms was to Judas, as if no one could have understood them prior to the betrayal. What they seem to be saying, however, is that just as the psalmist’s portrayals of “The Servant of the Lord and the Righteous Sufferer” can on the basis of the Semitic concept of corporate solidarity be applied to God’s Messiah, Jesus, the Servant and Righteous Sufferer, so the retribution spoken of as coming upon false companions and wicked men in general is especially applicable to Judas, who above all other men was false.