Who was Judas Iscariot?

Bible People & HistoryIn theological review

The short answer

Judas Iscariot was one of the twelve apostles, the group's treasurer, who betrayed Jesus to the chief priests for thirty pieces of silver and then died in remorse. Matthew and Acts give two accounts of his death that differ in detail: Matthew says he hanged himself, and Acts says he fell and his body burst open in a field bought with the betrayal money.

The fuller answer

Judas Iscariot was one of the twelve men Jesus chose as apostles, and for about three years he travelled with Jesus, heard his teaching, and was sent out with the others to preach and heal. His surname Iscariot probably marks his origin, possibly Kerioth in Judah, which would make him the only apostle not from Galilee. John 12 says Judas kept the group's money box and helped himself to its contents, so his rot began with quiet theft long before the betrayal. Jesus knew what was coming: at the Last Supper he identified the betrayer by handing him bread, and John 13 says Satan then entered Judas, who went out alone into the night.

So Judas threw the silver into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.

Matthew 27:5 (BSB)

Judas led the arresting party to the garden of Gethsemane and identified Jesus with a kiss, the agreed sign. When he saw that Jesus was condemned, Matthew says Judas was seized with remorse, returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests, confessed that he had sinned by betraying innocent blood, and went away and hanged himself. The priests would not put blood money back into the temple treasury, so they used it to buy a potter's field as a burial place for foreigners, and the field was called the Field of Blood. Remorse, in Judas's case, led to despair and death rather than to the repentance and return that Peter found after his own failure.

(Now with the reward for his wickedness Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong and burst open in the middle, and all his intestines spilled out.

Acts 1:18 (BSB)

Acts tells the end differently, and honesty requires setting the two accounts side by side. In Acts 1 Peter says Judas bought a field with the reward of his wickedness, fell headlong there, and his body burst open. Matthew has the priests buying the field with Judas's returned money, and Judas dying by hanging; Acts has Judas as buyer and a fatal fall. Readers have tried to combine them, for example a hanging followed by the rope breaking, but the text does not spell that out. Both agree on the substance: the betrayer died in disgrace, his office passed to Matthias, and his end is told as the wages of betraying the Son of God.

Sources

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

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