The Bible on Judas Iscariot

What the text says

Judas is named in the synoptic lists of the Twelve (Matthew 10:4, Mark 3:19, Luke 6:16) and in John (6:70–71), always with the qualifier “who betrayed him” or its equivalent — the Gospels record his name only with the act already attached, written in retrospect.

John 6:70–71 introduces him as Jesus’s own choice: “Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.” (He was speaking about Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. For although Judas was one of the Twelve, he was later to betray Him.)

John 12:6 offers a single character note: at the dinner in Bethany, when Judas objects to the costly perfume being poured on Jesus rather than sold for the poor, the narrator inserts: “He did not say this because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to pilfer what was put into it.”

Matthew 26:14–16 records the agreement with the chief priests:

Then one of the Twelve, the one called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and asked, “What are you willing to give me if I hand Him over to you?” So they set out for him thirty pieces of silver. And from then on, Judas looked for an opportunity to betray Him.

Luke 22:3 and John 13:27 both record a non-naturalistic explanation:

Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve. (Luke 22:3)

“What you are about to do, do quickly.” (John 13:27 — Jesus to Judas at the Last Supper)

Neither evangelist elaborates. The text offers the statement and moves on.

Two accounts of his death

The two passages that describe Judas’s death — Matthew 27 and Acts 1 — give different details:

Matthew 27:3–5 has Judas return the silver to the chief priests, declare “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood,” throw the money into the temple, and die by hanging.

Acts 1:18–19 has Judas buy a field with the money, then “fell headlong, his body burst open, and all his intestines spilled out.”

The two accounts agree that Judas died, that there were thirty silver coins, and that a field came to be called “Field of Blood” (Aramaic Hakeldama). They differ on the manner of death and on who bought the field. The text gives both accounts without reconciling them.

What the text doesn’t say

Why he did it. The Gospels record what he did, not why. Several explanations are proposed in later tradition and modern scholarship — greed (drawing on the John 12:6 thief detail and the thirty silver coins), idealism (Judas trying to force Jesus’s hand toward political revolution), predestination (drawing on John 17:12 — “the son of perdition”), disillusionment (the kingdom not coming as he expected). None of these explanations are supplied by the text. John says he was a thief; Luke and John say Satan entered him. The text holds both simultaneously without explanation.

That he is in hell. The text does not say this. Matthew 26:24 records Jesus saying “it would be better for him if he had not been born” — not that he is damned. Acts 1:25 says he “left to go to his own place,” a phrase variously interpreted. The doctrinal question is contested; the textual statement is bounded.

That he repented in any soteriological sense. Matthew 27:3 uses the Greek metamelētheis (μεταμεληθείς) — “filled with remorse” or “changed his mind” — rather than metanoeō (μετανοέω, the standard New Testament word for repentance leading to salvation). The distinction is small but consistently observed in the text.

Key verse

John 13:27, at the Last Supper:

As soon as Judas had taken the bread, Satan entered into him. So Jesus told him, “What you are about to do, do quickly.”

The other disciples, the text immediately adds, “did not understand why Jesus had said this to him” (John 13:28). The exchange is private, the meaning indirect. The text presents the moment as decisive without explaining who is now driving what.

Read in other translations

The passages above use the BSB and KJV — both public domain. To read John 13:27 in copyrighted modern translations, follow the links to BibleGateway:

• John 13 — full chapter on Bible1.org →
• John 13:27 — NIV →
• John 13:27 — ESV →
• John 13:27 — NLT →
• John 13:27 — NASB →
• John 13:27 — CSB →

Original language note

Judas (Greek Ioudas, Ἰούδας) is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Yehudah (יְהוּדָה), borne by the patriarch Judah and used through the Hebrew Bible. The name means praise — see Genesis 29:35, where Leah names her son after declaring “this time I will praise the LORD.” Six different people in the New Testament carry the name, including Jude the brother of James (Jude 1:1) and “Judas, not Iscariot” in John 14:22.

Iscariot (Ἰσκαριώτης) is debated. The most common reconstruction is Ish-Qeriyot — “man of Kerioth,” a Judean town. If correct, this would make Judas the only non-Galilean among the Twelve, the others all coming from the region around the Sea of Galilee. An alternative reading derives the name from the Latin sicarius (“dagger-man” — used of first-century Jewish nationalist insurgents), but this proposal is later and more speculative.

Related reading

• The Bible on Pontius Pilate — the figure to whom Judas’s act delivered Jesus
• In their own words: Jesus on money — direct sayings from the same speaker who calls the money bag’s keeper a thief