Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What will you give me if I deliver him to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him. Matthew 26:14-16
When a person mentions thirty pieces of silver, many immediately think of Judas’ betrayal of Jesus, so familiar is his betrayal etched in our memories. To be a ‘Judas’ has long been part of Western culture’s portrayal of betrayal. When Matthew comes to list the names of the apostles he begins with Peter, James and John, and then the others. Judas is last – always. But never just Judas but “Judas … who betrayed him”. When Mark writes his Gospel it is the same: “Judas who betrayed him”. When Luke writes his gospel, it is the same: “Judas who betrayed him”. Then thirty years after that, John – by now in his 80s or 90s – writes his Gospel. He calls him “Judas … who was later to betray him”.
The chief rulers found that thirty pieces of silver were sufficient money to buy the betrayal of Jesus into their hands. In Hebrew culture, thirty pieces of silver was not a lot of money. In fact, it was the exact price paid to the master of a slave if and when his slave was gored by an ox:
But if the ox gores a slave, either male or female, the animal’s owner must pay the slave’s owner thirty silver coins, and the ox must be stoned. Exodus 21:32 (NLT)
The slave’s death was compensated by the thirty pieces of silver.
Jesus redeemed us from the slave market of sin – that’s the doctrine of redemption. Redemption is Jesus Christ paying a price we could never pay to deliver us from our bondage to sin through His death on the cross. God did not purchase our freedom with gold or silver, the typical currency for buying human slaves, but with the blood of His beloved Son.
As the Bible says:
Ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation … But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. 1 Peter 1:18-19 (KJV)
Judas returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, “I have sinned in betraying innocent blood.” Every word was true. With remorse, he threw the money back into the temple, the coins clinking and ringing as they hit the stone pavement. As Judas turned to go, the thirty pieces of silver stayed behind. The Jews saw this as blood money and they couldn’t use it in the temple so they ended up buying the potter’s field, foretold by Zechariah hundreds of years earlier. In addition, the prophet Jeremiah had prophesied about this long ago, as noted by Matthew when he wrote:
Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel, and they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord directed me.” Matthew 27:9-10 (ESV)
Judas is a sad illustration of the Bible’s warning, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” May we learn from his tragic example and remain steadfast in our commitment to Jesus.