Q. I’ve seen two verses concerning how Judas died; Act 1:18 (With the reward he got for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out. and Matt 27:5 So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.
Why does it say he died two different ways?
A. When Judas tried to return the money, the priests couldn’t take it back because it was tainted, so they used it to buy a field from a potter. It was money belonging to Judas that paid for the field, so indirectly, he bought it. This transaction was prophesied by Zechariah about 500 years earlier. (Zech. 11:12-13)
Tradition says that Judas hanged himself on a tree above an embankment. Either the branch or the rope broke sending his body over the edge. When he hit the ground he burst open. It’s not clear whether this happened at the point of death or sometime later after his body had begun decomposing.