Acts 1:18

This man purchased. Verses 18, 19 may be Luke’s explanation inserted in Peter’s speech; Peter would scarcely need to give to the 120 details concerning Judas’ death. It need not be taken from this wording that Luke believed Judas had purchased the “field of blood” before his death. Judas’ money, ill-gotten, bought the field, and his burial in it was a reward of his iniquity. Matthew’s record is explicit: When Judas saw that Jesus was condemned to be crucified, and was making no effort to save Himself, he felt remorse over his treachery. He returned the 30 pieces of silver to the priests with whom he had made his nefarious bargain and then hanged himself. With the money the chief priests bought a potter’s field, where the waste from potteries had been dumped, and there they buried Judas. Because of this, or because the money was the price of “innocent blood,” the place was called “the field of blood” (see on Matt. 27:3-10; see DA 722). The difference between the accounts of Matthew and Luke is rhetorical, not factual: all Judas received as his reward was disgraceful burial in a barren piece of ground.

Falling headlong. There is some evidence that the words thus translated should be understood instead to mean “swelling up.” However, the evidence is insufficient to clearly recommend such a translation. Judas, perhaps the most personally ambitious of Jesus’ disciples, had sought to reach great heights of worldly power by identifying himself with the kingdom he thought Jesus would set up on earth. His horrible death seems strikingly significant of the tragic results of such ambition. Instead of gaining the heights to which he treacherously aspired, “falling headlong,” he perished.