Acts 1:18

οὗτος μὲν οὖν κ. τ. λ. This verse and the next are regarded in R.V. as a parenthesis (compare also W.H [107]), μὲν οὖν making the transition from St. Peter's own words to the explanatory statement of St. Luke; see Rendall's Appendix on μὲν οὖν, although he would place Acts 1:20 also in a parenthesis, Acts, p. 160 ff. For this frequent use of μὲν οὖν in Acts, see also Blass, who regards μέν as used here, as in other places, without any following antithesis expressed by δέ, Grammatik des N. G., pp. 261, 267, see also Hackett's note in loco. Spitta, Feine, Weiss, see in these two verses an editorial interpolation. ἐκτήσατο χωρίον. To harmonise this with Matthew 27:5, an explanation has been often used to this effect, that although Judas did not purchase the field, it was purchased by his money, and that thus he might be called its possessor. This was the explanation adopted by the older commentators, and by many modern. Theophylact, e.g., describes Judas as rightly called the κύριος of the field for the price of it was his. It is no doubt quite possible that St. Peter (if the words are his and not St. Luke's) should thus express himself rhetorically (and some of his other expressions are certainly rhetorical, e.g., ἐλάκησε μέσος), or that Judas should be spoken of as the possessor of the field, just as Joseph of Arimathæa is said to have hewn his own tomb, or Pilate to have scourged Jesus, but possibly Dr. Edersheim's view that the blood-money by a fiction of law was still considered to belong to Judas may help to explain the difficulty, Jesus the Messiah, ii., 575. Lightfoot comments, “Not that he himself bought the field, for Matthew resolves the contrary nor was there any such thing in his intention when he bargained for the money,” and then he adds, “But Peter by a bitter irrision showeth the fruit and profit of his wretched covetise:” Hor. Heb. (see also Hackett's note). Without fully endorsing this, it is quite possible that St. Peter, or St. Luke, would contrast the portion in the ministry which Judas had received with the little which was the result of the price of his iniquity. ἐκ τοῦ μισθοῦ τῆς ἀδικίας pro τοῦ ἀδίκου μισθοῦ, a Hebraism, Blass, in loco, see also Winer-Schmiedel, p. 268. The phrase only occurs again in 2 Peter 2:13; 2 Peter 2:15; on this use of ἐκ see Simcox, Language of the N. T., p. 146. Combinations of words with ἀδικία are characteristic of St. Luke (Friedrich). In the other Evangelists the word is only found once, John 7:18. καὶ πρηνὴς γενόμ. Wendt (following Zeller and Overbeck) and others maintain that St. Luke here follows a different tradition from St. Matthew, Matthew 27:6 ff., and that it is only arbitrary to attempt to reconcile them. But Felten and Zöckler (so too Lumby and Jacobson) see in St. Luke's description a later stage in the terrible end of the traitor. St. Matthew says καὶ ἀπελθὼν ἀπήγξατο : if the rope broke, or a branch gave way under the weight of Judas, St. Luke's narrative might easily be supplementary to that of St. Matthew. Blass, in loco, adopts the former alternative, and holds that thus the narrative may be harmonised with that of St. Matthew, rupto fune Iudam in terram procidisse. It is difficult to see (as against Overbeck) why πρηνὴς γεν. is inconsistent with this. The words no doubt mean strictly “falling flat on his face” opposed to ὕπτιος, not “falling headlong,” and so they do not necessarily imply that Judas fell over a precipice, but Hackett's view that Judas may have hung himself from a tree on the edge of a precipice near the valley of Hinnom, and that he fell on to the rocky pavement below is suggested from his own observation of the locality, p. 36, Acts of the Apostles (first English edition), see also Edersheim, ubi supra, pp. 575, 576. At all events there is nothing disconcerting in the supposition that we may have here “some unknown series of facts, of which we have but two fragmentary narratives”: “Judas,” B.D. 2, and see further Plummer sub v. in Hastings' B.D. ἐλάκησε : here only in the N.T. λάσκω : a strong expression, signifying bursting asunder with a loud noise, Hom., Iliad, xiii., 616; cf. also Acta Thomæ, 33 (p. 219, ed. Tdf.): ὁ δράκων φυσηθεὶς ἐλάκησε καὶ ἀπέθανε καὶ ἐξεχύθη ὁ ἰὸς αὐτοῦ καὶ ἡ χολή, for the construction cf. Luke 23:45.

[107] Westcott and Hort's The New Testament in Greek: Critical Text and Notes.