John Gill Commentary Matthew 27

When the morning was come
Or, as soon as it was day, as Luke says, (Luke 22:66) . The sanhedrim had been up all night, which, after eating the passover, they had spent in apprehending, trying, and examining Jesus, and the witnesses against him; and had come to an unanimous vote, that he was guilty of death; upon which they either put Jesus out of the room for a while, or went into another themselves, to consult what further steps should be taken: or if they went home to their own houses, they very quickly got together again, and met in the temple, where they seem to be, (Matthew 27:5) , unless the story of Judas is, by anticipation, inserted here; and in their council chamber, where they led Jesus, and examined him again concerning his being the Son of God; see (Luke 22:66) , all which shows how intent they were upon this business, and with what eagerness and diligence they pursued it; their feet ran to evil, and they made haste to shed blood. This was the time of their morning prayers, of their saying their phylacteries, and reciting the "shema", "hear, O Israel! the Lord our God is one Lord", according to their canon, which is this ^F5:

``from what time do they read the "shema" in the morning? from such time that a man can distinguish between blue and white: says R. Eliezer, between blue and green; and he finishes it before the sun shines out. R. Joshua says, before three hours had elapsed:''

but religion, rites, ceremonies, and canons, must all give way to the accomplishment of what their hearts were so much set upon:

all the chief priests and elders of the people .
The Syriac and Persic versions leave out the word "all", but it is retained in the Vulgate Latin, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions, and in Munster's Hebrew Gospel, and that very rightly. The Scribes and elders met at Caiaphas's house before, (Matthew 26:57) , but it being in the night, they might not be all together; Annas particularly seems to have been absent, (John 18:24) , but now they all assemble together, as in a case of necessity they were obliged to do: their rule was this ^F6;

``the sanhedrim, consisting of seventy and one (as this was), are obliged to sit all of them as one, (or all, and everyone of them,) in their place in the temple; but at what time there is a necessity of their being gathered together, (Nlwk Nyubqtm) , "they are all of them assembled"; but, at other times, he who has any business may go, and do his pleasure, and return: yet so it is, that there may not be less than twenty three sitting continually all the time of their sitting; (their usual time of sitting was from the morning daily sacrifice, to the evening daily sacrifice ^F7; ) one that is under a necessity of going out; this looks upon his companions that remain, and if twenty three remain, he may go out; but if not, he may not, until the other returns.''

This being now a case of necessity, and great importance, they are all summoned and gathered together, unless we except Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus; who yet might be there, though they did not consent to their counsel and deed, as is certain of the former, (Luke 23:51) , these

took counsel against Jesus ;
God's holy child Jesus, his anointed, the Messiah; and which was taking counsel against the Lord himself; and so the prophecy in (Psalms 2:2) , had its accomplishment: what they consulted about was

to put him to death ;
it was not what punishment to inflict upon him, whether scourging or death; that was before determined; they had already condemned him to death: but now they enter into close consultation what death to put him to, and in what manner; whether privately, he being now in their hands; or whether by the means of zealots, or by the Roman magistrate; or whether it should be by stoning, which must have been the case, if they put him to death according to their law; and by their authority; or whether by crucifixion, which they chose as the most ignominious and painful; and therefore determined to deliver him up to the Roman governor, and use their interest with him to put him to death, according to the Roman law.

FOOTNOTES:

• F5: Misn. Beracot, c. 1. sect. 2.
• F6: Maimon. Hilch. Sanhedrin, c. 3. sect. 2.
• F7: lb. c. 3. sect. 1. Bernidbar Rabba, sect. 1. fol. 177. 3.

And when they had bound him
The captain, and officers, bound him when they first took him, and brought him to Annas, and Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas, (John 18:12John 18:24) . Perhaps he might be unloosed whilst he was examining before the high priest, under a show of freedom to speak for himself; or they might bind him faster now, partly for greater security, as he passed through the streets, and partly for his greater reproach; as also, that he might be at once taken to be a malefactor by the Roman judge.

they led him away :
the chief priests and elders of the people led him, at least by their servants, and they themselves attending in person, that they might awe the people from attempting a rescue of him, as they passed along; and that they might influence the Roman governor speedily to put him to death; and lest he should be prevailed upon to release him, through his own commiseration, the innocence of Jesus, and the entreaty of his friends.

And delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor ;
and so fulfilled what Christ had predicted, (Matthew 20:19) . This they did, either because the power of judging in cases of life and death was taken away from them; or if it was not, they chose that the infamy of his death should be removed from them, and be laid upon a Gentile magistrate; and chiefly because they were desirous he should die the death of the cross.

The Syriac, Arabic, and Persic versions leave out the first name Pontius, and only call him Pilate: the Ethiopic version calls him Pilate Pontinaeus; and Theophylact suggests, that he was so called because he was of Pontus.

Philo the Jew ^F8 makes mention of him: ``Pilate, says he, was (epitropov thv Ioudaiav) , "procurator of Judea"; who not so much in honour of Tiberius, as to grieve the people, put the golden shields within the holy city in the palace of Herod.'' And so Tacitus ^F9 calls him the procurator of Tiberius, and Josephus also ^F11 .

It is said ^F12 of him, that falling into many calamities, he slew himself with his own hand, in the times of Caligula, and whilst Publicola and Nerva were consuls; which was a righteous judgment of God upon him for condemning Christ, contrary to his own conscience.

FOOTNOTES:

• F8: De Legat. ad Caium, p. 1033, 1034.
• F9: Hist. l. 15.
• F11: De Bello Jud. l. 2. e. 9. sect. 2.
• F12: M. Aurel-Cassiodor. Chronicon in Caligula, Joseph. Antiq. l. 18. c. 11. Euseb. Eccl. Hist. l. 2. c. 7.

Then Judas, which has betrayed him
Before, he is described as he that shall, or should, or does betray him; but now having perpetrated the horrid sin, as he that had done it.

When he saw that he was condemned ;
that is, that Jesus was condemned, as the Syriac and Persic versions read, either by the Jewish sanhedrim, or by Pilate, or both; for this narrative concerning Judas may be prophetically inserted here, though the thing itself did not come to pass till afterwards; and the sense be, that when he, either being present during the whole procedure against Christ; or returning in the morning after he had received his money, and had been with his friends; finding that his master was condemned to death by the sanhedrim, who were pushing hard to take away his life; that they had delivered him bound to the Roman governor; and that he, after an examination of him, had committed him to the soldiers to mock, and scourge, and crucify him; and seeing him leading to the place of execution,

repented :
not for the sin, as committed against God and Christ; but as it brought a load of present guilt and horror upon his mind, and exposed him to everlasting punishment: it was not such a repentance by which he became wiser and better; but an excruciating, tormenting pain in his mind, by which he became worse; therefore a different word is here used than what commonly is for true repentance: it was not a godly sorrow for sin, or a sorrow for sin, as committed against God, which works repentance to salvation not to be repented of; but a worldly sorrow, which issues in death, as it did in him.

It did not spring from the love of God, as evangelical repentance does, nor proceed in the fear of God, and his goodness; but was no other than a foretaste of that worm that does not die, and of that fire which cannot be quenched: it was destitute of faith in Christ; he never did believe in him as the rest of the disciples did; see (John 6:64John 6:70John 6:71) , and that mourning which does not arise from looking to Jesus, or is not attended with faith in him, is never genuine. Judas's repentance was without hope of forgiveness, and was nothing else but horror and black despair, like that of Cain's, like the trembling of devils, and the anguish of damned souls.

It looks as if Judas was not aware that it would issue in the death of Christ: he was pushed on by Satan, and his avarice, to hope, that he would get this money, and yet his master escape; which he imagined he might do, either through such a defence of himself, as was not to be gainsaid; or that he would find out ways and means of getting out of the hands of the Jews, as he had formerly done, and with which Judas was acquainted: but now, there being no hope of either, guilt and horror seize his mind, and gnaw his conscience; and he wishes he had never done the accursed action, which had entailed so much distress and misery upon him:

and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests
and elders :
which was the sum he; had covenanted for, and they had agreed to give him, on condition of delivering Jesus into their hands, which he had done: and it appears from this, that the money had been accordingly paid him, and he had received it. But he being filled with remorse of conscience for what he had done, feels no quietness in his mind; nor could he keep what he had desired, but is obliged to return it; not from an honest principle, as in the case of true repentance, but on account of a racking and torturing conscience.

Saying, I have sinned
Here was a confession, and yet no true repentance; for he confessed, but not to the right persons; not to God, nor Christ, but to the chief priests and elders; nor over the head of the antitypical scape goat, not seeking to Christ for pardon and cleansing, nor did he confess and forsake sin, but went on adding sin to sin, and so found no mercy. The same confession was made by a like hardened wretch, Pharaoh, (Exodus 9:27) . He proceeds and points out the evil he has committed:

in that I have betrayed innocent blood ,
or "righteous blood"; so the Vulgate Latin, and Syriac versions, and Munster's Hebrew Gospel read, and some copies; that is, have betrayed an innocent and righteous person, and been the occasion of his blood being about to be shed, and of his dying wrongfully. So God, in his all-wise providence, ordered it, that a testimony should be bore to the innocence of Christ, from the mouth of this vile wretch that betrayed him; to cut off the argument from the Jews, that one of his own disciples knew him to be a wicked man, and as such delivered him into their hands: for though Judas might not believe in him as the Messiah, and the Son of God, at least had no true faith in him, as such; yet he knew, and believed in his own conscience, that he was a good man, and a righteous and innocent one: and what he here says is a testimony of Christ's innocence, and what his conscience obliged him to; and shows the terrors that now encompassed him about; and might have been a warning to the Jews to have stopped all further proceedings against him; but instead of that,

they said, what is that to us? see thou to that :
signifying, that if he had sinned, he must answer for it himself; it was no concern of theirs; nor should they form their sentiments of Christ according to his: they knew that he was a blasphemer, and deserving of death; and whatever opinion he had of him, it had no weight with them, who should proceed against him as an evildoer, let him think or say what he would to the contrary; and suggest, that he knew otherwise than what he said: so the Syriac and Persic versions render it, "thou knowest", and the Arabic, "thou knowest better".

And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple
Upon the ground, in that part of the temple where they were sitting; in their council chamber, (tyzgh tkvl) , "the paved chamber", where the sanhedrim used to meet ^F13 : for it seems they would not take the money of him; and he was determined not to carry it back with him, and therefore threw it down before them, left it,

and departed ;
from the sanhedrim: and went; out of the temple; not to God, nor to the throne of his grace, nor to his master, to ask pardon of him, but to some secret solitary place, to cherish his grief and black despair,

and hanged himself .
The kind and manner of his death, as recorded by Luke in (Acts 1:18) is, that "falling headlong, he burst asunder the midst, and all his bowels gushed out"; which account may be reconciled with this, by supposing the rope, with which he hanged himself, to break, when falling; it may be, from a very high place, upon a stone, or stump of a tree; when his belly burst, and his guts came out:

or it may be rendered, as it is in the Arabic and Ethiopic versions, "he was strangled"; and that either by the devil, as Dr. Lightfoot thinks; who, having been in him for the space of two or three days, caught him up into the air, and threw him down headlong; and dashing him on the ground, he burst in the midst, and his bowels gushed out, and the devil made his exit that way: Or by a disease called the squinancy, or quinsy, a suffocation brought upon him by excessive grief, deep melancholy, and utter despair; when being choked by it, he fell flat upon his face, and the rim of his belly burst, and his entrails came out.

This disease the Jews call (arkoa) , "Iscara"; and if it was what he was subject to from his infancy, his parents might call him Iscariot from hence; and might be designed in providence to be what should bring him to his wretched end: and what is said of this suffocating disorder, seems to agree very well with the death of Judas.

They say ^F14 , that ``it is a disease that begins in the bowels, and ends in the throat:'' they call death by it, (her htym) , "an evil death" <sup>F15</sup> ; and say <sup>F16</sup> , that ``there are nine hundred and three kinds of deaths in the world, but that (arkoa Nlkbv hvq) , "the hardest of them all is Iscara"; which the Gloss calls "strangulament", and says, is in the midst of the body:''

they also reckon it, (hnwvm htym) , "a violent death" ^F17 ; and say ^F18 , that the spies which brought a bad report of the good land, died of it. Moreover, they affirm ^F19 , that ``whoever tastes anything before he separates (i.e. lights up the lamp on the eve of the sabbath, to distinguish the night from the day), shall die by "Iscara", or suffocation.'' Upon which the Gloss says, this is ``measure for measure: he that satisfies his throat, or appetite, shall be choked: as it is said ^F20 he that is condemned to be strangled, either he shall be drowned in a river, or he shall die of a quinsy, this is "Iscara".''

FOOTNOTES:

• F13: T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 88. 2.
• F14: Gloss. in T. Bab. Sabbat, fol 33. 1.
• F15: T. Bab. Yebamot, fol. 62. 9.
• F16: Beracot, fol. 3. 1.
• F17: Gloss. in T. Bab. Taanith, fol. 19. 2.
• F18: T. Bab. Sota, fol. 35. 1.
• F19: T. Bab. Pesachim, fol. 105. 1.
• F20: T. Bab. Cetubot, fol. 30. 2.