Matthew 27 Footnotes

27:5-7 The differences between Matthew’s and Luke’s (Ac 1:18-19) accounts of the death of Judas and the use of the blood money are not as imposing as some suggest. Both Matthew and Luke agreed that a field was purchased with Judas’s money (though only Matthew mentioned that the priests purchased the field as agents of Judas), and both agreed that the field subsequently became known as the “Blood Field.” Luke was ambiguous as to why the field was so named; Ac 1:19 says, “This became known to all,” can be read as referring to the purchase of the field with the tainted money (Ac 1:18) rather than to the manner of Judas’s death. Matthew and Luke must be taken to supplement one another on the manner of Judas’s death. The simplest harmony is that Judas hanged himself above a precipice but that the rope or support broke, causing him to fall. The topography of Jerusalem easily lends itself to this scenario.

27:9-10 Most of this quote is from Zch 11:12-13, but it also contains allusions to Jr 19:1-13. Both Zechariah and Jeremiah were part of a tradition within the OT dealing with the apostasy of Israel and its rejection of God’s leadership. These themes come to fulfillment in Jesus’s rejection by the Jewish leadership and more specifically in the details of the blood price of God’s Shepherd and the purchase of the potter’s field. Jeremiah is cited as the prophet most relevant to Matthew’s point. That the fit between the quote and the event is rough argues that Matthew did not invent the event to “fulfill” a prophecy.

27:24-26 This episode is often thought unhistorical (though there is nothing historically implausible in Pilate’s action) and that Matthew was thereby anti-Semitic. But all the Gospels note that Pilate was reluctant to execute Jesus (Mk 15:9-10,14; Lk 23:7,14-16,20-25; Jn 18:31,38-40; 19:4,6,12-16) and that the Jewish leadership and mob were insistent that he do so. Thus Matthew’s portrayal is not unique. The first Christians and Jesus himself were Jewish. Luke portrayed the early church as self-consciously Jewish.

27:51-53 Presumably the tombs were opened when Jesus died, and the saints were raised and came out when Jesus arose, later ascending at his ascension. Matthew referred to their resurrection here apparently because he wished to link the messianic victory and end of the age represented by that resurrection with the death of Christ. That they “appeared to many” indicates that Matthew’s intention in this report was historical, for the detail is irrelevant if his intention was merely symbolic.

27:62-66 Some have argued that Matthew created this account to provide evidence that the body of Jesus was not stolen. But if Matthew wished to create such evidence, surely he would have had the guard posted immediately upon burial, not a day later, or even witness the resurrection (as in the clearly contrived Gospel of Peter). The account rather seems intended to provide background for the report in 28:11-15, which in itself points toward its historicity. The Jewish response to this story would have been to deny it altogether, had it not been true, rather than complicate it by asserting the sleeping guard allowed the theft of the corpse. An inscription discovered in Nazareth and dating to before AD 70 records an imperial decree forbidding the removal of bodies from graves on pain of death. This decree is thought to have been issued by either Tiberius (AD 14–37) or Claudius (AD 41–54). Grave robbing was a perennial problem in the Roman Empire. Other inscriptions as late as the third century AD threaten severe punishment to those who remove bodies from tombs.