The field of blood. — St. Luke (Acts 1:19) gives the Aramaic form, Akeldama, but assigns the death of Judas in a field which he had bought as the origin of the name. It is possible that two spots may have been known by the same name for distinct reasons, and the fact that two places have been shown as the Field of Blood from the time of Jerome downwards, is, as far as it goes, in favour of this view. It is equally possible, on the other hand, that Judas may have gone, before or after the purchase, to the ground which, bought with his money, was, in some sense his own, and there ended his despair, dying literally in Gehenna, and buried, not in the grave of his fathers at Kerioth, but as an outcast, with none to mourn over him, in the cemetery of the aliens.
Unto this day. — The phrase suggests here, as again in Matthew 28:15, an interval, more or less considerable, between the events and the record. (Comp. the Introduction as to the date of the Gospel.)