<p>27:6 <em>And the chief priests took the pieces of silver and said</em>- See on :5 <em>Cast down. </em>I suggested there that Judas actually put the silver pieces into the trumpet-like collection bowls, and thereby into the temple treasury. But the priests literally had to fish them out of there because of their legalistic obsession with not having blood money in the temple treasury. Even though they had likely taken that money out of the treasury themselves in the first place. Their self-contradictory legalism is a great theme of the record here.</p><p><em>It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is the price of blood</em>- &ldquo;Put&rdquo; here translates <em>ballo</em>, to throw. Although it is a different word to that used about Judas &lsquo;casting&rsquo; the silver pieces in the temple I suggested, into the collection containers, the idea is similar. They were now trying to find fault with Judas- and were claiming that he had acted incorrectly by &lsquo;casting&rsquo; blood money into the temple treasury. Their idea that it was not lawful was based around their extension of the commandment of Dt. 25:18 &ldquo;You must not bring the hire of a prostitute or of a male prostitute into the house of Yahweh your God&rdquo;. But there was not actually any direct Divine law which forbad those pieces of silver going into the temple treasury. Their extension of the <em>implication</em> of a Divine law had become, in their minds, itself a law which they had to obey. This is the problem with legalistic attitudes- more laws are spawned. Their concerns about what was lawful and &ldquo;not lawful&rdquo; run throughout the Gospel records (12:2,10; 19:3; 22:17 etc.). The Law of Moses was intended for the time and place it was given, and was part of an ongoing dialogue between God and His people; and the legal code given by Moses in places contradicts itself, or allows various options for obedience or various outcomes for disobedience e.g. adultery. It wasn&rsquo;t intended to be used in a casuistic sense, and parts of it were overridden or abrogated even before the Lord Jesus came. If it is used in a casuistic, black and white sense, then like any law, it logically spawns hosts of other requirements. What &lsquo;logically follows&rsquo; becomes the deciding issue, rather than the spirit of loving God and doing what He wishes.</p>