Judas, Amasa, and the Field of Blood
When Judas dies, he becomes associated with a place called the “Field of Blood.” Aside from being a fitting name for a plot of land that was purchased with “blood money” (Matthew 27:6), the field has a biblical precedent that links Judas with Absalom and his military leader Amasa. While the connections between Judas and Absalom are well known, the Field of Blood may allude to the fate of Amasa, which shows how careful the Gospel writers were to echo the events of Israel’s Scriptures.
The stories of Absalom and Judas share several parallels. Both figures are betrayers (of David and Yeshua, respectively) whose schemes include the mention of a kiss (cf. 2 Samuel 14:33; 15:5; Matthew 26:48-49). Judas “hanged himself” (ἀπήγξατο, apēgxato) after Jesus’s death (Matthew 27:5) and Absalom is found “hanging” in an oak tree (2 Samuel 18:10). Also during the revolt of Absalom, Ahithophel turns away from David and joins Absalom. When Ahithophel realizes that his counsel against David is not followed, Scripture says that he “hanged himself” (יֵּחָנַק; yehaneq [2 Sam 17:23]) just as Judas would centuries later. It seems that Matthew wished to highlight Judas as a fulfiller of the fates of Absalom and his associates.
A similar nod to Scripture may be at play in the Field of Blood and its echo of Amasa, Absalom’s military leader. After Absalom revolts against David, he appoints Amasa to be commander of his army. Then, once David wins back control, he appoints Amasa to be his own military commander. This does not sit well with Joab, David’s longtime confidant and senior military official. When Joab goes out to meet Amasa, he took “Amasa by the beard with his right hand to kiss him. But Amasa did not see the sword that was in Joab’s hand, and Joab struck him with it in the stomach and spilled his intestines to the ground without striking a second blow, and he died” (2 Samuel 20:9-10). This is strikingly similar to Judas’s death according to Luke, in which the betrayer’s “innards spilled out” (Acts 1:18).
Second Samuel goes on to say that “Amasa lay wallowing in his blood in the road. And anyone who came by, seeing him, stopped. And when [one of Joab’s men] saw that all the people stopped, he carried Amasa out of the road into the field and threw a garment over him” (2 Samuel 20:12). According to Acts 1:19, the Aramaic name for Judas’s “Field of Blood” is Akeldama (חקל דמא; haqal dama). Both of these words— חקל (haqal; “field”) and דמא (dama; “blood”)—appear in the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible known as the Targum. In describing Amasa’s fate, the Targum states, “Amasa was flailing in the midst of his blood (דמא; dama) and [one of Joab’s men put Amasa]… into the field (חַקְלָא; haqla)” (Tg. 2 Sam 20:12). The Aramaic rendering of Israel’s Scriptures describes the bloodied field that becomes the final resting place of Amasa, and the events surrounding Judas echo this Israelite history. Those who stood against David—Absalom, Ahithophel, and Amasa—have their counterpart in the unfortunate fate of Jesus’s betrayer.
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