Judas
From BibleEncyclopedia.Net
The Graecized form of Judah.
(1.) The patriarch (Mat_1:2, Mat_1:3).
(2.) Son of Simon (Joh_6:71; Joh_13:2, Joh_13:26), surnamed Iscariot, i.e., a man of Kerioth (Jos_15:25). His name is uniformly the last in the list of the apostles, as given in the synoptic (i.e., the first three) Gospels. The evil of his nature probably gradually unfolded itself till “Satan entered into him” (Joh_13:27), and he betrayed our Lord (Joh_18:3). Afterwards he owned his sin with “an exceeding bitter cry,” and cast the money he had received as the wages of his iniquity down on the floor of the sanctuary, and “departed and went and hanged himself” (Mat_27:5). He perished in his guilt, and “went unto his own place” (Act_1:25). The statement in Act_1:18 that he “fell headlong and burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out,” is in no way contrary to that in Mat_27:5. The suicide first hanged himself, perhaps over the valley of Hinnom, “and the rope giving way, or the branch to which he hung breaking, he fell down headlong on his face, and was crushed and mangled on the rocky pavement below.”
Why such a man was chosen to be an apostle we know not, but it is written that “Jesus knew from the beginning who should betray him” (Joh_6:64). Nor can any answer be satisfactorily given to the question as to the motives that led Judas to betray his Master. “Of the motives that have been assigned we need not care to fix on any one as that which simply led him on. Crime is, for the most part, the result of a hundred motives rushing with bewildering fury through the mind of the criminal.”
(3.) A Jew of Damascus (Act_9:11), to whose house Ananias was sent. The street called “Straight” in which it was situated is identified with the modern “street of bazaars,” where is still pointed out the so-called “house of Judas.”
(4.) A Christian teacher, surnamed Barsabas. He was sent from Jerusalem to Antioch along with Paul and Barnabas with the decision of the council (Act_15:22, Act_15:27, Act_15:32). He was a “prophet” and a “chief man among the brethren.”
jōō´das (Ἰούδας, Ioúdas; Greek form of Hebrew “Judah”):
(1) A Levite mentioned in 1 Esdras 9:23 = Judah (3).
(2) Judas Maccabeus, 3rd son of Mattathias (1 Maccabees 2:4). See Maccabees.
(3) Judas, son of Chalphi, a Jewish officer who supported Jonathan bravely at the battle of Hazor (1 Maccabees 11:70; Ant., XIII, v, 7).
(4) A person of good position in Jerusalem at the time of the mission to Aristobulus (2 Maccabees 1:10); he has been identified with Judas Maccabeus and also with an Essene prophet (Ant., XIII, xi, 2; BJ, III, 5).
(5) Son of Simon the Maccabee, and brother of John Hyrcanus (1 Maccabees 16:2). He was wounded in the battle which he fought along with his brother against Cendebeus (1 Maccabees 16:1 ff; Ant., XIII, vii, 3), and was murdered by Ptolemy the usurper, his brother-in-law, at Dok (1 Maccabees 16:11 ff).
