Presumably beblēkotos would
have to be beblēmenou. On every
count, then, the lectio difficilior,
which also has the superior external evidence, is best interpreted to mean that
Satan had put into Judas’s heart the idea of betraying Jesus. The awkwardness
of the expression accounts for the variants; and moreover, Bauer rightly points
out that the sentence, composed this way with the name of the betrayer at the
end, provides striking, dramatic impact. (D. A. Carson, Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility:
Biblical Perspectives in Tension [Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf and Stock Publishers,
2002], 131)
The expression is awkward: ‘the devil already having put it into the
heart that Judas … should betray him’. Whose heart? One might assume the heart
of Judas (for somewhat analogous language, cf.
Rev. 17:17), and indeed some Greek manuscripts preserve the genitive of Judas (Iouda) that sanctions such a rendering.
The idea, then, is not that Judas was not responsible, for a heart incited by
Satan actually wills what the devil wills (Schlatter, p. 279); rather, the plot
against Jesus, however mediated by wicked human beings, was nothing less then
satanic. Interpreters admit, however, that the genitive Iouda is an easier reading than the nominative Ioudas, and therefore, all other things being equal, somewhat less
likely to be original. If we adopt the nominative, it is more natural (though,
against Barrett, p. 439, surely not required) to understand the heart to be the
devil’s: the devil put it into his own
heart that Judas would betray Jesus, i.e.
the devil so decided. Despite alleged parallels, however (viz. 1 Sa. 29:10 lxx; Jb. 22:22), it is doubtful that ‘to put into
one’s (own) heart’ ever means ‘to decide’, so that this understanding of the
nominative is intrinsically unlikely. One is tempted to think that the original
was nominative, but was such an awkward way of saying that the devil put the
thought into Judas’ heart that some later copyists made the point clear by
‘correcting’ to the genitive. Either way, the devil and Judas are now in a
conspiracy of evil to bring Jesus to the cross, a conspiracy fleshed out in vv.
18, 19, 21–30; ch. 18. (D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to
John [The Pillar New Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans,
1991], 461-62)
