Betrayal

Betrayal is the act of handing a person over to danger or harm by someone close enough to be trusted, and in Scripture it is usually expressed with a word for "handing over" rather than a word specifically for treachery. In Greek, the verb behind most of the New Testament's betrayal language is paradidōmi, "to give over, deliver up," an ordinary wide-range verb used for handing a person to authorities, to custody, or to death; English versions say "betray" where the handing over is treacherous and "deliver" elsewhere, so the same underlying word appears as "deliver him to you" in Matthew 26:15 and as "will be delivered to the chief priests" in Matthew 20:18.

The Old Testament example in this connection is an act of informing rather than of treachery in the narrow sense. David, in need, asks Ahimelech for bread, and the priest gives him the showbread taken from before Yahweh (1 Samuel 21:3, 21:6). Doeg the Edomite, standing among Saul's servants, then reports what he saw: "I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob, to Ahimelech the son of Ahitub" (1 Samuel 22:9). What the text records is a true report turned against the man who gave help; the harm lies not in falsehood but in the use made of accurate knowledge by someone positioned to overhear and to speak.

In the Gospels the concept gathers around Judas Iscariot, and the narratives stress proximity as much as malice. Matthew says he went to the chief priests and asked, "What are you willing to give me if I deliver him to you?" and that from then on "he sought opportunity to betray him" (Matthew 26:14–16); Mark identifies him as "one of the twelve" (Mark 14:10); Luke has him approach Jesus with a kiss (Luke 22:47). Matthew 24:10 extends the idea beyond one man to a community under pressure: "Then many will stumble, and will deliver up one another, and will hate one another." Set against these is the passive formulation of Matthew 20:18, where the Son of Man "will be delivered" with no human agent named, so that the Gospel presents the handing over at once as human action and as something happening within a necessity it treats as God's purpose.

Christian traditions weigh these texts differently. Luke's statement that "Satan entered into Judas" (Luke 22:3) is read by some as a diabolical incursion that qualifies how far Judas's act was his own, while others point to the deliberate initiative of Matthew 26:14–16 and take the Satan saying as naming the gravity of the act rather than removing the actor's responsibility. Translators and interpreters also differ over Jesus' words in Matthew 26:50, rendered "Friend, why are you here?" in some versions and as an imperative in others, so that his posture toward Judas is read variously as rebuke, as sorrowful address, or as a handing him over in turn. How divine purpose and human guilt are held together in the delivery of Jesus has likewise been weighted differently across traditions, some stressing providence and others accountability.

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.