Acts 1:19

Ἀχελδαμάχ with אA. The form, though not easy to be accounted for, has also much support from the versions.

19. καὶ γνωστὸν ἐγένετο, and it became known. And hence the name of ‘the Potter’s Field’ was by general consent changed to ‘the Field of Blood.’ The entire story, as St Luke tells it, must have been what in later days became widely known, for there is nothing of it in St Matthew’s narrative, which only mentions the purchase to account for the change of name.

τῇ ἰδιᾳ διαλέκτῳ. i.e. in the Aramaic speech, which was the language of the dwellers in Jerusalem. The giving of this name must have taken place some time after the Day of Pentecost. So that St Luke is explaining parenthetically something in which evidence still remained, in the name, to bear witness to the terrible fate of Judas, and to the impression which it produced throughout all Jerusalem.

Ἀχελδαμάχ. This orthography, which has most authority, is not easy to explain. The Aramaic form would be חֲקַל דְּמָא, and for this we should expect an aspirate at the beginning of the word, and it is so represented in some authorities, as in Vulg., which gives ‘Haceldama.’ When the word was made to commence with ἀ, the principle of compensation for the lost aspirate may have converted Hacel into Ἀχελ (cf. for the converse of this ἔχω, future ἕξω), and the final χ may be due to a desire to represent in some way the final א of the Aramaic, which together with the preceding vowel-point might be deemed incompletely represented by α only.