Luke 22:21

“But behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table.”

There are few ideas that chill the blood more than that of ‘treachery' and ‘betrayal'. All knew of the growing enmity of outsiders against Jesus, and now He was telling them that one of them, one of the chosen twelve, would betray him. It must have seemed unbelievable. And that such a person should be sitting at the table eating with them demonstrated how deep must be his unscrupulousness. For to the Easterner to eat with someone was a declaration of friendship, and a guarantee of safety, honoured by all except the most degraded. Such an idea was deeply rooted in custom.

‘The hand.' No closer fellowship could be imagined than that of sharing the same table with the hands constantly almost touching as they shared food on the table. It would appear that Judas had been given a favoured place, just as he was given a favoured sop (John 13:26), so that his hands and Jesus' hands were on the same table. To have someone's hand with you can signify having their support (Luke 1:66; Acts 11:21). But such an indication of a person by his hand is essentially Semitic, especially when it is the hand of an enemy or of one working to a contrary purpose (compare 1 Samuel 22:17; 1Sa 18:21; 1 Samuel 24:13; 2 Samuel 14:19). The idea may therefore be of hostility. There on the table of fellowship and love and remembrance was the hand of the betrayer that would seek to strike Him down.