The Feast of Unleavened Bread — the Passover — was drawing near. The chief priests and the scribes had been looking for a way to do away with him, but they were afraid of the people.

Then Satan enteredhelpDifficultSatan entered"Satan entered Judas" is language most modern readers find difficult. The text presents a personal, external evil force taking up residence in a human being — not metaphorical influence or psychological temptation, but spatial entry (the verb εἰσέρχομαι is concrete: "went into"). Interpretive approaches: (1) Literal — a personal spiritual being exercised real agency through Judas, as the text presents. (2) Psychological — "Satan" names the internal process by which greed, disillusionment, or ambition overwhelmed Judas's loyalty. (3) Narrative-theological — Luke uses Satan as a literary-theological character to frame the passion as cosmic conflict, not merely human politics. All three readings take the text seriously. What the text refuses to do is let Judas off the hook: 22:22 pronounces judgment on "that man," holding human responsibility alongside the cosmic framing. JudaslinkContextSatan entered JudasLuke uniquely places Satan's entry into Judas before the Last Supper (John 13:27 places it during the meal). This completes a narrative circle: in 4:13, after the temptation in the wilderness, Satan departed from Jesus "until an opportune time." Now the opportune time has come. In 22:6, the word for "opportunity" (εὐκαιρία) shares the same Greek root as "opportune time" (καιρός) in 4:13. Luke frames the entire passion as the resumption of the cosmic conflict that began in the wilderness.. The one called Iscariot. One of the Twelve.

He went and conferred with the chief priests and the temple officerspublicCulturetemple officersThe στρατηγοί were commanders of the Levitical temple guard — a Jewish police force under priestly authority, not Roman soldiers. Luke is the only Gospel writer to mention them here. They were the armed enforcement arm that would carry out the nighttime arrest in Gethsemane (22:52). about how he might hand him overtranslateTexthand him overThe Greek παραδίδωμι — "hand over, deliver up" — is the passion's defining verb, used twelve times in Luke 22-24. English "betray" captures one dimension, but the word also carries a legal register (handing a prisoner to authorities) and, in Paul's theology (Romans 8:32), the sense of God's own self-giving. The same verb describes Judas's act, Pilate's decision, and God's purpose. to them. They were delightedtranslateTextthey were delightedThe Greek ἐχάρησαν is the same verb used for joy over a repenting sinner in Luke 15 (the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son). The ironic inversion is sharp: the religious leaders celebrate the instrument of their own judgment.. They agreed to give him money. He accepted. From that moment he began looking for an opportunity to hand him over to them apart from the crowdlinkContextapart from the crowdThe crowd is Jesus's political shield. The leaders cannot act publicly because popular support protects him (19:47-48; 20:19; 22:2). The operational constraint — "apart from the crowd" — explains why the arrest must happen at night, in a garden, away from the pilgrim-packed city. The people's absence is the precondition for the powerful to act..