Final x (-ακ) seems certain—see comment below.
historian, adopt the view that τῇ διαλέκτῳ αὐτῶν and tovT’ ἔστιν χωρίον αἵματος are explanations introduced by St. Luke, who could trust to his Gentile readers to distinguish between his words and those of St. Peter (Wendt, Holtzmann, Zockler, Nosgen, Jiingst. Matthias).—rq διαλέκτῳ: only in Acts in the N.T., where it is used six times in all parts; it may mean dia- lect or language, but here it is used in the latter sense (R.V.) to distinguish Aramaic from Greek (cf. its use in Poly- Ρί18).--- αὐτῶν, {.ε., the dwellers of Jeru- salem, who spoke Aramaic—unless the whole expression is used rhetorically, it would seem that it contains the words, not of St. Peter, who himself spoke Aramaic, but of the author (see Blass, in loco).— ’AxedSapa: the Aramaic of the
Field of Blood would be $1D"7 bon
ο and it is possible that the x may be added to represent in some way the guttural \,
just as ΣιράχΞ Ν ΤΟ); cf. Blass, zn loco, andGrammatik des N.G.,p.13. W.H. (so Blass) read “AceASapax (and ’AyeASapax, Tisch. and Treg.); see also on the word Winer-Schmiedel, pp. 60 and 63. A new derivation has been proposed by Klostermann, Probleme in Afosteltexte, Ρ. 6 Π., which has gained considerable attention (cf. Holtzmann, Wendt, Felten,
Zockler, {η loco), viz.: I= κοιμᾶσθαι,
so that the word = κοιµητήριον, cf. Matt. xxvii. 8. This is the derivation preferred by Wendt, and it is very tempting, but see also Enc. Bibl., Ι., 32, 1899, sub v. It is true that the two accounts in St. Matthew and St. Luke give two reasons. for the name Field of Blood. But why should there not be two reasons? If the traitor in the agony of his remorse rushed from the Temple into the valley of Hin- nom, and across the valley to ‘‘the pot- ter’s field” of Jeremiah, the old name of the potter’s field might easily become changed in the popular language into that of ‘field of blood,’”’ whilst the rea- son given by St. Matthew for the name might still hold good, since the blood- money, which ὃν a fiction of law was.
τουτέστι χωρίον αἵματος.