Judas had just confessed, "I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood" (Matthew 27:4). The leaders' question brushed his confession aside. Barnes says the expression meant "they had nothing to do with his remorse." They had what they wanted, and "they cared little now for the feelings of the traitor." Gill reads their words as "signifying, that if he had sinned, he must answer for it himself; it was no concern of theirs." They did not deny that the blood was innocent. They simply refused to carry any of it.

Judas did not answer in words. "He cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself" (Matthew 27:5). The chief priests, who had said it was nothing to them, picked up the silver and said, "It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood" (Matthew 27:6). They bought the potter's field with it, which was called "The field of blood" (Matthew 27:7-8).

Matthew says Judas "repented himself" (Matthew 27:3), but the Greek word is metamelētheis, from metamelomai, to regret or feel sorry afterward. Thayer says the more common word for repentance, metanoeō, "is the fuller and nobler term." Barnes notes that the word Matthew uses "does not of necessity denote a change for the better."

The word for "innocent" is athōos. In the New Testament it appears only here and in Pilate's words, "I am innocent of the blood of this just person" (Matthew 27:24). The reply "see thou to that" is literally "you will see," meaning: that is your concern.

This question exposes two failures side by side. Judas felt the weight of his sin but took it to the wrong place. Gill says, "Here was a confession, and yet no true repentance," because he confessed "not to God, nor Christ, but to the chief priests and elders." Matthew Henry agrees: "Judas went far toward repentance, yet it was not to salvation." And the leaders, who could not lift his guilt, did not even try.

Without meaning to, Judas also bore witness to Jesus. Barnes points out that if Jesus had done anything evil, "Judas was competent to testify it." The man who had walked with Jesus and then betrayed Him called His blood "innocent."