(4) I have sinned in that I have betrayed.--More accurately, I sinned in betraying.

What is that to us?--We instinctively feel, as we read these words, that deep as was the guilt of Judas, that of those who thus mocked him was deeper still. Speaking after the manner of men, we may say that a word of sympathy and true counsel might have saved him even then. His confession was as the germ of repentance, but this repulse drove him back upon despair, and he had not the courage or the faith to turn to the great Absolver; and so his life closed as in a blackness of darkness; and if we ask the question, Is there any hope? We dare not answer. Possibly there mingled with his agony, as has been suggested by one at least of the great teachers of the Church (Origen, Horn. in Matt. 35), some confused thought that in the world of the dead, behind the veil, he might meet his Lord and confess his guilt to Him.

Verse 4. - I have sinned. He confesses his sin, indeed, yet not to God, but to the partners and instigators of his crime, and this, not with godly sorrow, but in self-disgust and vexation of spirit that could not be repressed. His was the sorrow that worketh death (2 Corinthians 7:10). In that I have betrayed [the] innocent blood (αῖμα ἀθῷον, or, according to some manuscripts, αῖμα δίκαιον, but in either case without the article). By speaking of "blood," he showed that he knew the murder was certain. Judas seems to have had no faith in Christ's Divinity, but he had perfect assurance of his holiness and innocence, and felt, and endeavoured to make the rulers feel, that an iniquitous sentence had been passed, and that a guiltless person was condemned to death. This consideration added to the bitterness of his regret. But he obtained no comfort from the hardened and unfeeling priests. They had gotten what they had desired. The question of Christ's moral guilt or innocence was nothing to them; equally indifferent to them was the fierce remorse of Judas. What is that to us? Τί πρὸς ἡμᾶς; See thou to that (σὺ ὄψει, tu videris, equivalent to "that is your concern," as in ver. 24). A more unfeeling, nay, fiendish answer could not have been given. It threw the wretched man back on himself, left him alone with his remorse, the blackness of his night unrelieved by any ray of human sympathy. In their own obduracy and impenitence they scorn the weakness of their miserable tool. As Bengel well moralizes, "Impii in facto consortes, post factum deserunt; pii, in facto non consortes, postea medentur." To sympathize with repentance is the duty and the privilege of the Christian; to deride and scoff at the returning sinner is devilish. It is profitable to contrast the sincere repentance of Peter after his fall with the remorse of the despairing Judas.

27:1-10 Wicked men see little of the consequences of their crimes when they commit them, but they must answer for them all. In the fullest manner Judas acknowledged to the chief priests that he had sinned, and betrayed an innocent person. This was full testimony to the character of Christ; but the rulers were hardened. Casting down the money, Judas departed, and went and hanged himself, not being able to bear the terror of Divine wrath, and the anguish of despair. There is little doubt but that the death of Judas was before that of our blessed Lord. But was it nothing to them that they had thirsted after this blood, and hired Judas to betray it, and had condemned it to be shed unjustly? Thus do fools make a mock at sin. Thus many make light of Christ crucified. And it is a common instance of the deceitfulness of our hearts, to make light of our own sin by dwelling upon other people's sins. But the judgment of God is according to truth. Many apply this passage of the buying the piece of ground, with the money Judas brought back, to signify the favour intended by the blood of Christ to strangers, and sinners of the Gentiles. It fulfilled a prophecy, Zec 11:12. Judas went far toward repentance, yet it was not to salvation. He confessed, but not to God; he did not go to him, and say, I have sinned, Father, against heaven. Let none be satisfied with such partial convictions as a man may have, and yet remain full of pride, enmity, and rebellion.Saying, I have sinned,.... Here was a confession, and yet no true repentance; for he confessed, but not to the right persons; not to God, nor Christ, but to the chief priests and elders; nor over the head of the antitypical scape goat, not seeking to Christ for pardon and cleansing, nor did he confess and forsake sin, but went on adding sin to sin, and so found no mercy. The same confession was made by a like hardened wretch, Pharaoh, Exodus 9:27. He proceeds and points out the evil he had committed:

in that I have betrayed innocent blood, or "righteous blood"; so the Vulgate Latin, and Syriac versions, and Munster's Hebrew Gospel read, and some copies; that is, have betrayed an innocent and righteous person, and been the occasion of his blood being about to be shed, and of his dying wrongfully. So God, in his all-wise providence, ordered it, that a testimony should be bore to the innocence of Christ, from the mouth of this vile wretch that betrayed him; to cut off the argument from the Jews, that one of his own disciples knew him to be a wicked man, and as such delivered him into their hands: for though Judas might not believe in him as the Messiah, and the Son of God, at least had no true faith in him, as such; yet he knew, and believed in his own conscience, that he was a good man, and a righteous and innocent one: and what he here says is a testimony of Christ's innocence, and what his conscience obliged him to; and shows the terrors that now encompassed him about; and might have been a warning to the Jews to have stopped all further proceedings against him; but instead of that,

they said, what is that to us? see thou to that: signifying, that if he had sinned, he must answer for it himself; it was no concern of theirs; nor should they form their sentiments of Christ according to his: they knew that he was a blasphemer, and deserving of death; and whatever opinion he had of him, it had no weight with them, who should proceed against him as an evildoer, let him think or say what he would to the contrary; and suggest, that he knew otherwise than what he said: so the Syriac and Persic versions render it, "thou knowest", and the Arabic, "thou knowest better".