the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Place (His Own)
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or The expression occurs in the ordination prayer for Matthias (Acts 1:25) where St. Peter states that Judas, into whose place he was being appointed, ‘fell away’ (παρέβη, Vulg._ praevaricatus est) from the ministry and apostleship, to ‘go to his own place.’ The phrase seems to remind us of the frequent OT phrase ‘to go (or return) unto his place,’ though no doubt with a special significance of its own here, to which the case of Balaam (ὃς μισθὸν ἀδικίας ἠγάπησεν, 2 Peter 2:16) supplies the nearest but still inexact parallel (Numbers 24:25); cf. also Job 2:11, where the three friends came each ‘from his own place.’ In both passages Rabbinic interpreters appear to have taken this to mean hell, though, of course, without any justifification according to our modern methods (see J. Lightfoot, Hor. Hebr., ed. Oxford, 1859, iv. 19). In the present passage, nevertheless, the proper place of the apostate is evidently conceived to be that spoken of by our Lord Himself (Matthew 25:41; cf. Luke 12:9). A. Plummer has pointed out (HDB_ ii. 798) that some of the early Fathers, notably Origen (Com. in Matt. 35) with his characteristic ingenuity and large-heartedness, have suggested that Judas’s motive for hurrying away from this world to the other was not remorse but contrition; having failed to obtain Christ’s pardon here, he hastened to meet Him and obtain it in the place of the departed. At all events, if, as St. Matthew seems to indicate, the act of suicide took place before the Crucifixion, it is a striking thought to dwell upon, that the souls of the Saviour and His betrayer did meet for a brief space and perhaps held commune ἐν φυλακῇ (1 Peter 3:19); and if so, with what merciful consequences to the latter, who shall say?
C. L. Feltce.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Place (His Own)'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/p/place-his-own.html. 1906-1918.
