Matthew 27:6-8

The treasury, &c.— Κορβαναν : the place where the gifts set apart for the service of the temple, and for other pious uses, were deposited, 2 Kings 12:10. Mark 12:41. Such an offering as this price of blood would have been as much an abomination to the Lord, as the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, Deuteronomy 23:18. The chief priests therefore determined to buy the potter's field with it, for burying strangers in: that is to say, such persons, whether Jews or Gentiles, as, happening to die at Jerusalem, had no burying-place of their own. Because the deliberation of the priests concerning this matter, and their buying the potter's field, had an immediate relation to Judas's treachery, St. Matthew very properly takes notice of it here, though the purchase might not have been made for some days, perhaps weeks or months, after the unhappy death of Judas. Thirty pieces of silver may seem a very inconsiderable price for a field so near Jerusalem. But as Grotius well observes, the ground was probably much spoiled by digging it up for earth to make potter's vessels, so that it was now unfit for tillage or pasture, and consequently of small value. This field was called Aceldama, or the field of blood, because it was bought with the money which Judas received for betraying his Master's life. Divine Providence seems to have set this name upon the field, to perpetuate the memory of the transaction: in St. Peter's speech it is intimated that Judas made an acquisition of this field; not as an estate, but as an eternal monument of infamy and disgrace; for the people of those times might be supposed to say, as they passed by, "This field was purchased with the money for which Judas sold his Master." Some ancient authors have even supposed that this was the place where Judas hanged himself, and was buried. St. Jerome, who had been upon the spot, tells us, that they still shewed this field in his time; that it lay south of mount Sion, and that they buried there the meanest of their people. The historians mentioning the purchase of the potter's field with the money for which Judas betrayed his Master, being an appeal to a very public transaction, serves to put the truth of this part of the history beyond all manner of exception.