Bible Dictionaries

Field of blood, a small field south of Jerusalem, which the priest purchased with the thirty pieces of silver that Judas had received as the price of our Savior's blood, Matthew 27:8 ; Acts 1:19 . Pretending that it was not lawful to appropriate this money to sacred uses, because it was the price of blood, they purchased with it the so- called potter's field, to be a burying-place for strangers. Judas is said, Acts 1:8 , to have purchased the field, because it was bought with his money. Tradition points out this field on the steep side of the hill of Evil Counsel overhanging the valley of Hinnom on the south. It appears to have been used, since the time of he crusaders, as a sepulchre for pilgrims, and subsequently by the Armenians. At present it is not thus used.