According to chapter 12, Jesus arrived in Bethany six days prior to the Passover Feast Day, which would put Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem from Jericho on the afternoon of the ninth day of the first month in the Jewish calendar. Five days later would put us in the evening of the fourteenth day of the month or just after sunset and the beginning of the Passover day, when the Pascal Lamb was slain (John 13:1).[1] The holy day or the Feast Day (John 12:1) was the annual Sabbath called the Feast of Unleavened Bread (cp. Leviticus 23:5-6), but the entire eight day festival was often referred to by either the Passover (John 2:13; 6:4) or the Days of Unleavened Bread (Acts 12:3; 20:6).
The Passover, besides it being a religious memorial, was a national holiday, patriotic spirits would have been high. Uppermost in the minds of many would have been a second exodus, whereby God would lead them out from under the oppression of Rome. Seen in this light may put a certain spin on the activity of Judas and the other disciples. They believed Jesus was the Messiah, and certain things, patriotic things, were expected of him.
At this point we are told Jesus was aware that his hour had come, and he knew he was about to leave this world and return to the Father, and in this context, John tells us that Jesus had loved his disciples and would love them to the very end (John 13:1).
In bold contrast to Jesus’ love for them, the Gospel writer immediately mentioned Judas was ready to betray Jesus (John 13:2), but how should we to understand his betrayal. Did he dislike Jesus? Did he no longer consider him to be the Messiah, or we might ask instead, did he ever believe Jesus was the Messiah? I think something about Judas is revealed in the idea that the text tells us: “the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him…” What does John mean in describing Judas in this manner?
First of all, if we say that the influencing party, the devil, is an evil spirit being, we learn nothing by John’s remark. In such a worldview, Judas is the helpless puppet of a spiritual mastermind, which is just another way of saying that man really isn’t responsible for the evil he does: the Devil made me do it![2] Nevertheless, this worldview isn’t supportable in the scriptures. If one didn’t already believe there was a spirit being called the Devil, the Bible student would be hard pressed to find such a doctrine taught in scripture. So, if Judas wasn’t influenced by a spirit being, how did he arrive at the point that he needed to betray Jesus?
The term devil (diabolos – G1228) means slanderer, that is, one who tells lies about or slanders another person. Paul uses the term in the plural to describe folks who shouldn’t lead the church (1Timothy 3:11; Titus 2:3; i.e. those who engage in slander), and to characterize the climate of the last days (2Timothy 3:3; i.e. slanderous). Jesus referred to Judas as a devil (John 6:70; a slanderer). Some scholars try to tell us, although Judas is called devil, he is not **the** Devil. The article (the) before the word devil in the Greek points to the evil spirit being, but there is none at John 6:70. They are correct in that there is no article before the Greek word there. However, not only would these same scholars tell us that the evil spirit being is meant at Acts 13:10; 1Peter 5:8 and Revelation 12:9; 20:2, but there is no article before the word devil in any of these verses of scripture. Moreover, in the Septuagint, the article is present at Esther 7:4 and Esther 8:1, but Haman, the evil and slanderous enemy of the Jewish people, is meant in both of these verses. Therefore, the scholarly opinion that the article is significant in determining whether or not the slanderer is a man or a spirit being is nothing more than conjecture.
Under the Old Covenant, the word translated devils in Leviticus 17:7 (H8163 – saiyr) literally means a male goat. Moreover, a second word translated devils (H7700 – shed) appears in Deuteronomy 32:17. In this chapter Moses was prophesying of the latter days of the Jewish nation (cp. Deuteronomy 31:28-29). Moses claimed these devils weren’t known or feared by the fathers of the Jewish nation. In other words, Moses affirmed the Jews in the latter days would be sacrificing to devils/gods, but those devils couldn’t be spirit beings, because they didn’t even exist in ancient times and were, rather, more recent to Jesus’ time, in that his public ministry occurred in the latter days of the Jewish nation (Hebrews 1:2). Therefore, if we carry this logic into John 13:2, the devil cannot be a spirit being, because according to Moses’ prophecy, the devil who influenced Judas was a man, and didn’t exist in Moses’ day.
If, we conclude that this devil can also be described as a goat (cp. Leviticus 17:7), and goats are represented in the scriptures as those who lead the nation (Zechariah 10:3), then the devil who put it into Judas’ heart to betray Jesus was a Jewish leader of some kind. Since Judas is a zealot and a member of the notorious Sicarii, most likely it was one of the zealot leaders of that political group who influenced him, perhaps in an effort to force Jesus to take up arms and fight for his life.
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[1] It would be slain on the following afternoon (same calendar day for the Jews) at about 3 PM as we measure time, and, of course, this is when Jesus hung on the cross, crucified since about 9 AM in the morning.
[2] A phrase made popular in the 1960s and 70s by the comedian Flip Wilson.
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