This verse has been manipulated by anti-Semites to indicate that the Jewish people accepted blood-guilt for the execution of Jesus, knowing that He was innocent. But evidence indicates that this is NOT that kind of statement at all. As Sloyan observes:

> The expression, far from being a self-inflicted curse, is a strong statement of innocence. It appears in later, mishnaic form in the Tractate Sanhedrin 37a, where in capital cases the witness uses the invocation as a proof of his innocence. If he is lying, he is willing to have the blood of the accused fall on himself and his offspring until the end of the world.

Of course, this does come from a late source, but it would be unusual if this phrase meant something exactly the OPPOSITE of what it did previously!

Matthew 27:25 records the crowd shouting, 'Let his blood be on us and on our children!' This verse has tragically been manipulated by anti-Semites throughout history to claim that the Jewish people universally accepted blood-guilt for the execution of Jesus, knowing that He was innocent.

However, historical and cultural evidence indicates that this is not that kind of statement at all. The expression, far from being a self-inflicted curse or an admission of guilt, is a strong, culturally idiomatic statement of innocence. It appears in a later, mishnaic form in the Tractate Sanhedrin 37a, where in capital cases a witness uses the invocation as a proof of his own innocence and the truthfulness of his testimony. By using this phrase, the witness asserts that if he is lying, he is willing to have the blood of the accused fall on himself and his offspring. The crowd in Matthew was emphatically declaring their absolute certainty that Jesus was guilty, not accepting a curse for murdering an innocent man.

As an added note, this "blood" verse has been manipulated by anti-Semites to indicate that the Jewish people accepted blood-guilt for the execution of Jesus, knowing that He was innocent [see Smit.Mt27]. But evidence indicates that this is NOT that kind of statement at all. As Sloyan [Sloy.JT, 85] observes:

> The expression, far from being a self-inflicted curse, is a strong statement of innocence. It appears in later, mishnaic form in the Tractate Sanhedrin 37a, where in capital cases the witness uses the invocation as a proof of his innocence. If he is lying,he is willing to have the blood of the accused fall on himself and his offspring until the end of the world.

Of course, this does come from a late source, but it would be unusual if this phrase meant something exactly the OPPOSITE of what it did previously.