This Material Has Not Been Edited For s8

THIS MATERIAL HAS NOT BEEN EDITED FOR

SCRIPTURAL ACCURACY, SPELLING, OR GRAMMAR

MATTHEW

CHAPTER 27

Matthew 27:1-14

27:1 Early in the morning, all the head cohanim and elders met to plan how to bring about Yeshua’s death. 2 Then they put him in chains, led him away and handed him over to Pilate the governor.

27:3 When Y’hudah, who had betrayed him, saw that Yeshua Judas had been condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins to the head cohanim and elders, 4 saying, “I sinned in betraying an innocent man to death.” “What is that to us?” they answered. “That’s your problem.” 5 Hurling the pieces of silver into the sanctuary, he left; then he went off and hanged himself.

27:6 The head cohanim took the silver coins and said, “It is prohibited to put this into the Temple treasury, because it is blood money.” 7 So they decided to use it to buy the potter’s field as a cemetery for foreigners. 8 This is how it came to be called the Field of Blood, a name it still bears. 9 Then what Yirmeyahu Jeremiah the prophet spoke was fulfilled, “And they took the thirty silver coins, which was the price the people of Isra’el had agreed to pay for him, 10 and used them to buy the potter’s field, just as the Lord directed me.”

27:11 Meanwhile, Yeshua was brought before the governor, and the governor put this question to him: “Are you the King of the Jews?” Yeshua answered, “The words are yours.” 12 But when he was accused by the head cohanim and elders, he gave no answer. 13 Then Pilate said to him, “Don’t you hear all these charges they are making against you?” 14 But to the governor’s great amazement, he did not say a single word in reply to the accusations. CJB

BACKGROUND – Pilate’s Report to Tiberius Caesar, Emperor of Rome The Archko Volume p. 138-141

‘I would warn the Romans to beware of the high priests of this country. They would betray their own mother to gain office and a luxurious living. Jesus was dragged before the High Priest and condemned to death. It was then that the High Priest, Caiaphas, performed a divisory act of submission. He sent his prisoner to me to confirm his condemnation and secure his execution. I answered him that, as Jesus was a Galilean, the affair came under Herod’s jurisdiction, and ordered him to be sent thither. The wily tetrarch professed humility, and, protesting his defense to the lieutenant of Caesar, he committed the fate of the man to my hands. Soon my palace assumed the aspect of a besieged citadel. Every moment increased the number of the malcontents. Jerusalem was inundated with crowds from the mountains of Nazareth. All Judea appeared to be pouring into the city.

I had taken a wife from among the Gaul’s, who pretended to see into futurity. Weeping and throwing herself at my feet she said to me: “Beware, beware, and touch not that man; for he is holy. Last night I saw him in a vision. He was walking on the waters; he was flying on the wings of the wind. He spoke to the tempest and to the fishes of the lake; all were obedient to him. Behold, the torrent in Mount Kidron flows with blood, the statues of Caesar are filled with gemonide; the columns of the interium have given away, and the sun is veiled in the mourning like a vestal in the tomb. Ah! Pilate, evil awaits thee. If thou wilt not listen to the vows of thy wife, dread the curse of a Roman Senate; dread the frowns of Caesar.’

By this time the marble stair groaned under the weight of the multitude. The Nazarene was brought back to me. I proceeded to the halls of justice, followed by my guard, and asked the people in a severe tone what they demanded. “The death of the Nazarene,” was the reply. For what crime? “He has blasphemed; he has prophesied the ruin of the temple; he calls himself the Son of God, the Messiah, the King of the Jews.” Roman justice, said I, punished not such offences with death. “Crucify him! Crucify him! Cried the relentless rabble. The vociferations of the infuriated mob shook the palace to its foundations.

MATTHEW CHAPTER 27

BACKGROUND CONTINUED

There was but one who appeared to be calm in the midst of the vast multitude; it was the Nazarene. After many fruitless attempts to protect him from the fury of his merciless persecutors, I adopted a measure which at the moment appeared to me to be the only one that could save his life. I proposed, as it was their custom to deliver a prisoner on such occasions, to release Jesus and let him go free, that he might be the scapegoat, as they called it; but they said Jesus must be crucified. I then spoke to them of the inconsistency of their course as being incompatible with their laws, showing that no criminal judge could pass sentence on a criminal unless he had:

1. Fasted on whole day;

2. And that the sentence must have the consent of the Sanhedrim,

3. And the signature of the president of that court;

4. That no criminal could be executed on the same day his sentence was fixed,

5. And the next day, on the day of execution, the Sanhedrim was required to review the whole proceeding;

6. Also, according to their law, a man was stationed at the door of the court with a flag,

7. And another a short way off on horseback to cry the name of the criminal and his crime,

8. And the names of his witnesses,

9. And to know if any one could testify in his favor;

10. And the prisoner on his way to execution had the right to turn back three times, and to plead any new thing in his favor.

I urged all these pleas, hoping they might awe them into subjection; but they still cried, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” I then ordered Jesus to be scourged.

‘This scourging was the ordinary preliminary to crucifixion and other forms of capital punishment. It was a punishment so truly horrible, that the mind revolts at it; and it has long been abolished by that compassion of mankind which has been so greatly intensified, and in some degree even created, by the gradual comprehension of Christian truth by Constantine of Rome.’

WHAT HAPPENED

1. The unhappy sufferer was publicly stripped, was tied by the hands in a bent position to a pillar, [I saw this pillar in 1972 myself Paul the Learner].

2. And then, on the tense quivering nerves of the naked back, the blows were inflicted with leathern thongs, weighted with jagged edges of bone and lead;

3. Sometimes even the blows fell by accident – sometimes, with terrible barbarity, were purposely struck – on the face and eyes.

4. It was a punishment so hideous that, under its lacerating agony, the victim generally fainted, and often died;

5. Still more frequently a man was sent away to perish under the mortification and nervous exhaustion which followed on the cross. Farrar’s The Life of Christ Pg. 624

‘I was hoping that this scourging might satisfy their blood lust; but it only increased their fury. I then called for a basin, and washed my hands in the presence of the clamorous multitude, thus testifying that in my judgment Jesus of Nazareth had done nothing deserving of dead; but in vain. It was his life these wretches thirsted for. Often in our civil commotions have I witnessed the furious anger of the multitude, but nothing could be compared to what I witnessed on this occasion. It might have been truly said that all the phantoms of the infernal regions had assembled at Jerusalem. The crowd appeared not to walk, but to be borne off and whirled as a vortex, rolling along in living waves from the portals of the praetorium even unto Mount Zion, with howling screams, shrieks, and vociferations, such as were never heard in the seditions of the Pannonia, or in the tumults of the forum.’ Pilate

MATTHEW CHAPTER 27

27:3-10 JUDAS. REMORSE.

A 27:3 Remorse.

B 27:4 Confession. Money returned.

A 27:5- Restoration.

B 27:-5 Suicide.

C 27:6 Price of blood

D 27:7, 8 Purchase. Fulfillment.

C 27:9 Price of blood Prophecy.

D 27:10 Purchase. Money spent.

The innocence of the Lord

Was confirmed by six witnesses:

Three in Matthew; and three in Luke.

1. Judas (27:4);

2. Pilate (27:24);

3. Pilate’s wife (27:19);

4. Herod (Luke 23:15);

5. The malefactor on the cross (Luke 23:41);

6. The Roman centurion (Luke 23:47).

27:1-10

The Other Betrayer's Remorse

Peter's remorse (26:75) contrasts with that of Judas, who killed himself instead of *repenting (27:5).

27:1-2. The Jewish authorities have to bring Jesus to Pilate, because they were not authorized by the Romans to execute the death penalty themselves. Pilate would be available as early as sunrise; like other Roman officials, he would finish his regular public day before noon.

27:3-4. Some Jewish teachers held that even the recantation of a false witness for the prosecution could not reverse the verdict; the officials here seem less concerned with legal theory than with political expediency, however. Those who dealt in bribes were accursed under the law (Deuteronomy 27:25), and a false witness was liable to the punishment appropriate for the alleged crime of the accused (Deuteronomy 19:18-19). Having innocent blood on one's hands meant that one was guilty of murder; in the *Old Testament, this guilt could be expiated only by the blood of the murderer or, if the murderer was unknown, through a sacrifice (Genesis 4:10; 9:6; Numbers 35:33; Deuteronomy 21:1-9). God could, however, grant mercy to the *repentant (Genesis 4:15; 2 Samuel 12:13-14).

27:5. Judas's suicide is an act of despair (cf. Saul - 1 Samuel 31:4; the traitor Ahithophel - 2 Samuel 17:23). Greco-Roman tradition considered suicide a nobler way to die than letting others kill one. To some Jewish people it was likewise noble if it was performed to avoid falling into the hands of torturers or to avoid being defiled (e.g., in *Josephus and in *4 Maccabees, possibly under Greek influence). But Judaism, especially strict Palestinian Judaism, normally regarded it as evil. (Ancient readers would thus view Judas's act in a more negative light than they would view that of the jailer in Acts 16:27.) According to ancient thought, if Judas had hanged himself in the sanctuary he would have defiled it (though he may have just "gone away" to locate a more convenient place). Flinging the money in the temple alludes to Zechariah 11:13 (see comment on Matt 27:9).

MATTHEW CHAPTER 27

*Maccabees, Fourth Book of

4 Maccabees. A Jewish treatise full of Greek (especially *Stoic) philosophy; probably written by an Alexandrian Jew in the early first century A.D.

27:6. Ancient writers often used irony, and Matthew is no exception: the chief priests are more concerned about the legal technicality of blood money for the treasury than that they issued the money for a judicial murder or that Judas is about to kill himself (cf. 23:23-24). Although the *Old Testament did not explicitly prohibit the use of such money, they are careful to use it for something doubly unclean (burying strangers). Some commentators have suggested that the mention of the treasury could reflect a Hebrew pun on the word translated "potter" (27:7; by a slight change of Hebrew spelling one could read "potter" as "treasury"), but this suggestion is not certain.

27:7-8. Burying people who had no one else to bury them was an act of piety (cf. Tobit). Many Jews from around the world visited Jerusalem or moved there in their old age, and if they died without sufficient funds others would need to pay for their burial; the "strangers" might also include unclean *Gentiles. (There is also a Jewish tradition of burying condemned criminals in such a field.) Thus the high priests no doubt saw their behavior as pious!

27:9-10. Jewish scholars could cite some texts while simultaneously alluding to others. Matthew here quotes Zechariah 11:12-13, but by attributing it to Jeremiah he also alludes to a similar text that he wishes his more skillful readers to catch (Jeremiah 32:6-10; cf. 19:1-4,10-11). (The quotation is almost verbatim, and it is unlikely that Matthew would have known the text so well yet attributed it accidentally to the wrong author, unless he is using a list of standard *messianic proof texts instead of citing directly from Zechariah, or he is purposely "blending" texts, as I suggest here.) Zechariah 11:12-13 refers to the low valuation God's people had placed on him; they valued him at the price of a slave (Exodus 21:32).

Chapter 27

27:2 Pilate the governor. Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judea from 26 to 36 C. E. and therefore the judge in the trial of Yeshua. An inscription with his name on it has been found in Caesarea, on the coast between Tel Aviv and Haifa. Philo and Josephus characterize him as vile, cruel and cagey; his weak character and lack of concern for truth and justice are clear from the New Testament descriptions of his behavior (see vv. 16-24 N). Also see Appendix.

27:9 Yirmiyahu the prophet. Although a passing allusion to Jeremiah 32:6-9 may be implied, the reference is to Zechariah 11:12-13, cited loosely or from memory. Why would Mattityahu Matthew ascribe the words to Jeremiah? One suggestion is supported by Talmudic references: the scroll of the Prophets may have originally begun with Jeremiah (the longest book, by word count), not Isaiah; if so, Mattityahu by naming Jeremiah is referring to the Prophets as a group, not naming the particular prophet quoted.