<p>27:5 <em>And he threw the pieces of silver into</em>- The Greek <em>rhipto </em>literally means to disperse and is used in classical Greek for depositing money; it may be a technical term for a donation to the poor, or some sort of charitable donation. Perhaps this was his final repentance for stealing what had been intended as donations for the poor. This would explain why he didn&rsquo;t give the money back to the priests and elders, but rather took it to the temple and cast it / dispersed / donated it there; hence they decided that it could not remain in &ldquo;the treasury&rdquo; (:6). He now gave it back, even though he had no personal hope of salvation because he didn&rsquo;t trust the Lord&rsquo;s grace.</p><p><em>The temple</em>- Judas presumably had been at the High Priest&rsquo;s palace for the trial, and it was a fair walk from there to the temple. His visit to the priests and elders may have been at the High Priest&rsquo;s palace, not at the temple. So he went to the temple purposefully, to throw his money down in the temple, perhaps throwing it into the &lsquo;trumpets&rsquo; into which people poured their money, and where the Lord had commented upon the widow throwing in her two last pennies. It would seem, therefore, that he did repent of his materialism, in the sense that he realized he had done wrong and wished to give those thirty pieces of silver at least to God&rsquo;s house and work. And yet he did not ultimately repent. See on :4 <em>I have sinned. </em>It is one thing to recognize our sin of materialism and to even give the wealth to the Lord&rsquo;s cause, but true repentance is another matter. It is a state of heart, and is modelled in Peter as opposed to Judas. It seems Judas did externally what was appropriate for someone who &lsquo;repented&rsquo;; he returned the money to God, but this is still not enough. All that &lsquo;putting things right&rsquo; was rather irrelevant compared to the need for faith in the Lord&rsquo;s grace and forgiveness.</p><p><em>And departed, and he went away and hanged himself- </em>Adam attempted to hide from God's presence, the Hebrew implying 'to drawn oneself back'. Judas went away (Gk. he retired away), from the house of God, the temple, to try to hang himself, once he knew his condemnation (Mt. 27:5). He went to the Potter's field (Acts 1:18), which was in the Valley of Hinnom. He went to Gehenna, the place of condemnation, of his own accord. His own legs carried him there. Ps. 112:10 has echoes of the scenario: &quot;The wicked shall see it (the Kingdom) and be grieved; he shall gnash with his teeth (judgment day language), and melt away&quot;. In similar vein the apostle speaks of the rejected as those who even now &quot;<em>draw back</em> unto perdition&quot; (Heb. 10:39). The implication is that by our attitude now, we effectively judge ourselves; if we draw back from Christ in this life, we will slink away from him in the day of judgment. The types of judgment also stress this slinking away. As there will be a slinking away at the final judgment, so there was at the cross, which was &quot;the judgment of this world&quot;. Early on in the crucifixion, the people hurled confident insults at Him. But we get the impression that this died out over the hours; until &quot;<em>all</em> the people that came together to that sight... smote their breasts, and returned&quot; (Lk. 23:48). They slipped away, one by one, as those who brought the adulterous woman to the Lord (this was another type of the judgment; they slipped away from Him, self-condemned- (Jn. 8:9). All this was a foretaste of how there will be an ashamed slinking away from the judgment seat by the rejected, being &quot;ashamed from before him at His coming&quot;, the Greek suggesting the idea of slinking away in shame (1 Jn. 2:28 Gk.). The wicked will melt away from the Lord's presence (Ps. 68:2). Rejected Israel are described as being &quot;ashamed away&quot; (Joel 1:12)- the same idea. This is the idea behind Heb. 12:15 RVmg: &quot;&hellip;man that falls back from the grace of God&quot;. What they did in this life in slinking away from the reality of pure grace will be what is worked out in their condemnation experience. There seems a certain similarity between this and how the combined Gospel records imply that men initially mocked Jesus on the cross, and then eventually slipped away in silence (Heb. 6:6).</p>