The money earned for the betrayal of Jesus was unacceptable money! Even the religious leaders would not use it for anything respectable. They called it Akeldama, or a “Field of Blood.” It was a “Potter’s Field.” It would be used as a burial place for the poor.

Grotius suggests that a Potter’s Field was a small field where potter’s clay was obtained, like a brickyard. Thus, it was a piece of ground consisting of nothing but hard clay and not suited for any honorable purpose. Others suggest that outside the house of every potter there was a field wherein he would throw any of his marred creations which, because they had become hardened, could not be re-shaped. Over the years, due to the accumulation of broken pottery, the potter’s field would thus be useless for anything but a burial ground. So a potter’s field is a useless field full of broken pots and dead bodies. Furthermore, it was close to Hell. To the southwest of Jerusalem was the Valley of Hinnom. It was the cities rubbish-dump. Since there were usually fires and smoke there, it was named Gehenna (= hell). This valley was used as early as the reign of Josiah as the dumping place for the corpses of criminals and dead animals. Understandably, then, hell came to be typified as a place of unquenchable fire, where the worm does not die. Akeldama (the field of blood) was located just south of this valley.

Before Christ purchased me with His blood, I too was a lifeless body, a useless, broken vessel living in near proximity to Hell. I wasn’t there yet, but you could see it from where I was. He breathed new life into my dead bones! He began reassembling the shattered remnants of my life. He took me from the proximity of Hell, to the certainty of having a place waiting for me in Heaven! Christ has never stopped doing this for strangers & sinners.

Chuck
“Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day.” (Matthew 27:8)