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potter's field," so called probably because potters' earth had been dug out of it; and being now exhausted of that material, and unfit for any agriculture, its value was small, and it was therefore purchased for the mean price of "thirty pieces of silver." From this time the field was called Aceldama, the field of blood; not, we may well conjecture, from the imposition of that name upon it by the chief priests, as by popular and habitual designation. Thus it remained marked with this new and expressive name, both as a proof of the fact, if it should be hereafter questioned, and a memorial of that remorse of Judas, for his treachery, which afforded so striking a proof of the guiltlessness of his betrayed Master. The 'ordering" of divine providence in these events was most signal, and not less in the overruled purpose of the Jewish sanhedrim in the use to which they applied it; for by making it a burial-place it was the longer preserved, by the respect paid to places appropriated to such purposes, from obliteration, and might probably remain marked by its tombs, the tombs of strangers, long after the capture of Jerusalem. At all events, it remained till after the publication of St. Matthew's Gospel in Judea; and as he could not relate a fact as notorious to all the inhabitants without being contradicted, if not truly stated, so, the fact being established, the history with which it stood connected was confirmed by a durable and visible monument. To the publicity of the fact Peter appeals, Acts i. 19. And it was known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, insomuch as that field is called in their proper tongue Aceldama, that is to say, "the field of blood." Jerome says, that it was to be seen in his days in Ælia, (the name of the city built upon the site of Jerusalem,) on the south side of Mount Sion.

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The mode in which Judas committed suicide has exercised the ingenuity of critics, ancient and modern. This has arisen from a supposed discrepancy between the account of Matthew and that of Peter in Acts i. 18, who says nothing of hanging, but states that, falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. Suicer's Thesaurus shows the different opinions of the fathers. Among the moderns some suppose he died of suffocation from grief; others, from rage and remorse; and that after death his body swelled and burst. Campbell translates, "he went away and strangled himself," leaving the mode undetermined; Wakefield, was choaked with grief," following Hammond and still older commentators. All, however, acknowledge that the word used by Matthew commonly means to hang one's self; of which classical examples are abundant, as also examples from the Septuagint. The ancient versions too give the same sense; nor is there the least inconsistency between the statement of the evangelist and St. Peter, in Acts i. 18; and no necessity therefore exists to strain the meaning of the passage of the former, aπελ0v annyaто, he went and hanged himself, into any unusual sense. St. Matthew relates the fact and mode of his suicide generally; St. Peter, to mark more strongly the infliction of the divine vengeance upon so wretched a criminal, dwells upon these additional circumstances in his death, which so strikingly impressed it with the character of a supernatural retribution. He hanged himself; but, puns yevouevos, becoming prostrate, that is, falling headlong, or rather upon his face, -either after death, or during the struggles of death, being violently cast down from the place where he was hanging by the hand of avenging heaven, in order to make him a public example,-he burst

d

d Zech. xi. 12.

asunder, and all his bowels gushed out. That something preternatural is implied in this account, appears evident, from the description of his body; for this effect could not follow from the mere breaking of the rope and his falling upon the ground, unless he had chosen a precipice for the place of his execution, which indeed some have supposed, but without any warrant from the history, or the real import of the terms employed.

Verse 9. Then was fulfilled, &c.—Because in these words the prophecy said to have been fulfilled is referred to Jeremy the prophet, attempts have been made, but in vain, to find in the writings of Jeremiah something corresponding with them. The quotation is manifestly from Zechariah xi. 12, 13: "And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord." There is a considerable variation in the words as they stand in St. Matthew; and this, together with what is alleged to be the obscurity of the prediction as it stands in Zechariah, has been made use of to support the notion that here as well as in other places, the evangelist does not quote the prophecy as fulfilled by the event which he narrates, but accommodates the words to the event. But no end could be answered by this, except to introduce a sort of literary ornament into his narrative; an artifice which we are forbidden to attribute to any of the evangelists from the rigid simplicity they uniformly observe. The subject has, it is true, its difficulties; but none which are insuperable. No practical end of conviction or

illustration can be assigned for the introduction of these words of the prophet, unless we admit the intention of St. Matthew to have been to adduce, in addition to many others, a signal and direct fulfilment of those prophetic indications of the life of our Lord which the Jewish scriptures were allowed to contain. The first inquiry necessary to settle this point must be into the import of that section of the prophecy of Zechariah in which the quotation stands. And on this it may be generally observed, that it has no apparent reference to any events which took place previously to the time of Christ. The evidence of this is so strong that the most ancient Jewish commentators themselves refer it to the Messiah, although, of course, they give it a different interpretation, but an entirely conjectural one; thus declaring that THEY know of no fact or series of facts in their history to which they can refer it. The prophecy is highly figura tive, and therefore proportionably obscure; but several points break through it which no one can mistake, as, 1. That God had appointed one eminent shepherd to feed his flock, the Jewish people, called emphatically, "the flock of slaughter," with reference to some wasting destruction which threatened to come upon them, and which, from the time when Zechariah wrote, we know must be subsequent to that which had already been produced by the invasion of the king of Babylon. This is a circumstance which agrees with the ministry of our Lord, who announces himself under the character of a shepherd, and the object of whose care was to avert the impending ruin of his people by bringing them to repentance. 2. That "the shepherds," of the flock spoken of, were without regard to them: "Their own shepherds pity them not," in

which we have an exact picture of the Jewish teachers in our Lord's days, men who neglected their charge and despised the people. 3. That a strong enmity existed between these shepherds and him whom God himself had appointed: "My soul loathed them, and their soul also abhorred me;" words which have the force of even historical truth though in the form of prophecy, and justly describe the holy" loathing" which Christ had of the pride, hypocrisy, and wickedness of the scribes and Pharisees, and their malignant abhorrence of him. 4. That even this divinely appointed Shepherd finally gives up his charge in judicial visitation : “Then said I, I will not feed you: that that dieth, let it die; and that that is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let the rest eat every one the flesh of another; " an awful description of a people abandoned to entire ruin, which nothing has occurred to realize, but the destruction of the Jews by the Romans, an event which signally answers to the prophecy. 5. That a covenant between the people intended and this Shepherd was broken: "And I took my staff, even beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people." And to what can this refer but to the entire annulling of the whole Mosaic covenant, by the rejection of the Jews as a peculiar people? 6. That a part of this very rejected and abandoned flock should admit his authority and mission: "And so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew" ("certainly knew," margin) "that it was the word of the Lord." This is one of the most noticeable parts of the prophecy; and the distinction made between the body of the flock, and a portion called the poor of the flock, who are characterized by "waiting upon him," or, as the phrase implies, worshipping and serving this great Shepherd, and acknowledging the truth of his word, as "the word of Jehovah," can only be referred to the few, and the despised and

persecuted part of the Jews, who followed Christ, believed on him, worshipped him as their God, and acknowledged the heavenly origin of his doctrine. Now all these particulars, which bring us down to the passage quoted by St. Matthew, do so directly and obviously relate to our Lord and his official administration, that the only conclusion to which such a connexion and scope of the discourse can justly lead us, is, that the words themselves so quoted relate to him likewise, and that, in fact, they give the great reason of this his terrible dealing with his ancient "flock," which was then despising and rejecting him; one most marked and flagrant instance of which is, their estimating him at the price of a slave, "thirty pieces of silver," the "goodly price," as the prophet sarcastically observes, at which I was prised of them." This application is made the more striking by the particular, which is added, that this price was "cast unto the potter," that is, cast down in order, as the event was, to be given to the potter for the purchase of his field. So consistently does the application of the whole to Christ run through the prophecy; and so manifestly does it appear, that the evangelist must have quoted the passage, as a direct and proper prediction of the

event!

The

The second inquiry respects the verbal differences between the words of Zechariah and those cited by St. Matthew. only variations of any importance arise from this, that the Messiah is represented by the prophet as the actor in the transaction: "If ye think good, give me my price. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter," &c.; which difficulty is solved by reflecting, that it is frequent in scripture to represent a thing as done by him who is the occasion of its being done. Instances abound in the prophets; and even in relation to this very event we have an instance in Acts i. 18, where St. Peter,

he answered nothing.

-This question could not have arisen from anything which occurred at the trial before the sanhedrim, and was probably suggested to Pilate by the chief priests, whose object it was to implicate Jesus in a charge of seditious intentions, so that the Roman governor might both the more readily consent to his death, and take his execution into his own hands, and, according to the Roman manner, crucify him.

Thou sayest. This, as above observed, was a form of affirmation. Our Lord without hesitation declared that he was the King of the Jews; but showed that he knew the authors of the charge of sedition suggested it by asking, "Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?" At the same time he takes care that Pilate should not proceed in ignorance upon the malicious suggestions of the priests, that he had professed to be the King of the Jews politically, by explaining his meaning, "My kingdom is not of this world," it is not a civil but a spiritual reign; and this was done that Pilate might know that Cæsar had nothing to fear from him. John xviii. 33, &c. There was great artifice in preferring so dangerous a charge against him before the Roman governor : Pilate appears at once to have perceived that if our Lord had professed to be a king, it was in some mystical sense, and not literally. Accordingly, St. Luke adds, "Then said Pilate to the chief priests and to the people, I find no fault in this man." This so enraged his accusers, that Pilate, anxious to get quit of the case, and gathering

from their clamours against him that he was a Galilean, sent him to Herod, tetrarch of Galilee, who was then at Jerusalem. See Luke xxiii. 5, &c. This circumstance is omitted by Matthew, who proceeds with what occurred after Jesus had been sent back to Pilate. It is to be remarked, that although our Lord replied to Pilate when he asked him whether he professed to be King of the Jews, he remained quite silent when Pilate asked him again, after his accusers had poured forth various accusations, Hearest thou not how many things they witness against thee? The reason is obvious: had not our Lord repelled the charge of sedition, Pilate would have had a show of justice in condemning him; but to clamorous and vague charges he answered nothing, as knowing that they could not affect his character, nor make his condemnation appear less unjust. He was to die the innocent for the guilty; and it was enough that he established his innocence against every specific charge, that it might appear; and how truly it did appear, is showed in the reiterated justification of him by Pilate.

Verse 15. Now at that feast, &c.—The Persian version renders it, every year, on the day of the feast," that is, the passover. But this release of a criminal does not appear to have been a custom which originated with the Jews. It was certainly not derived from their law, which, as St. Paul says, Heb. x. 28, inflicted death "without mercy," xwgis okligμwv. It was the custom with both Greeks and Romans to distinguish some of their festivals in this manner; and this had pro