Matthew 26:24

It had been good] A popular expression. The rabbis said, 'Whoever knows the Law and does it not, it were better for him never to have been born.' 'If a man does not attend to the honour of his Creator, it were better if he had not come into the world.' The justice of Judas's punishment, seeing that the betrayal of Jesus was predestined, has been much, discussed. The solution probably is that the betrayal by Judas was not predestined. It was morally certain that in a state of society like that in Palestine in our Lord's time, a teacher like Jesus would be betrayed by some one, but that some one need not have been Judas. Judas was rightly punished because he freely took the evil business upon himself. For the probable reasons why Jesus chose Judas to be an Apostle, see on John 6:71.