The Crucifixion
The chief priests picked up the pieces of silver and said, “It is unlawful to put this into the treasury, since it is blood money.” Matthew 27:6 · Berean Standard Bible
The priests pick up the coins and say: we cannot put this in the treasury — it is blood money.
They have no problem paying for an innocent man's death, but they will not put the money back in the offering box because it is tainted. The moral blindness is staggering.
The chief priests discuss the proper handling of the returned silver.
They strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. The coins are dirty, but their hands are dirtier — and they do not even realize it.
The chief priests refuse to place the returned silver in the temple treasury (korbanas) because it constitutes 'blood money' (time haimatos), scrupulously observing ritual law while orchestrating murder.
The korbanas (treasury, from Hebrew qorban) had strict purity rules. The priests' legal scrupulosity about tainted money while executing an innocent man is Matthew's sharpest irony.
The chief priests deliberate about the proper disposal of the returned silver.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking — they paid for murder without hesitation but now worry about contaminating the temple treasury with the very money they disbursed.
4“I have sinned by betraying innocent blood,” he said.
5So Judas threw the silver into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.
6The chief priests picked up the pieces of silver and said, “It is unlawful to put this into the treasury, since it is blood money.”
7After conferring together, they used the money to buy the potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners.
8That is why it has been called the Field of Blood to this day.
Read all of Matthew 27 — The climax of the story. Every thread — sacrifice, covenant, prophecy, promise — converges at a cross outside Jerusalem.
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