If I deliver him: the verb deliver (Good News Translation “betray”) is commented on at 4.12, where Revised Standard Version translates the passive form as “had been arrested.” Some translations have “help you arrest him” or “deliver him to you so you can arrest him.” Sometimes it is more natural to reverse the order of the sentence: “If I help you arrest Jesus, what will you give me?”

Since this is the opening of a new section, Good News Translation specifically identifies him as Jesus.

Paid (so also New Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible) is translated by two verbs in Good News Translation: “counted … gave” The Greek verb itself has a number of different meanings, and it may possibly be used in the sense of “offered” or “agreed to pay” (Luther 1984; Phillips, Barclay “settled with … for”), as the New English Bible footnote indicates.

Only Matthew mentions thirty pieces of silver (Good News Translation “thirty silver coins”) as the price of betrayal. The amount is not significant, and it was probably determined by Zechariah 11.12 (“So they paid thirty pieces of silver as my wages”). According to Exodus 21.32, this is also the amount which the owner of a bull had to pay a person whose slave had been killed by the bull. One scholar notes that in New Testament times inflation was such that “the sum was worth only about a tenth as much.”

The amount of money given to Judas, thirty pieces of silver, was not in itself important, as we pointed out above, but there is some value in retaining the form, since it does tie this amount in with the Zechariah reference. Translators should not try to convert this to modern currencies such as pounds or francs, but if a literal translation is unacceptable, they can say “thirty pieces of money made from silver.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .