Matthew seems to deal with the mode of the attempted suicide, Acts describes the results. Judas apparently tied a rope to the branch of a tree, put a noose around his neck, and tried to hang himself by jumping off a cliff. Combining the two accounts, it seems that either the rope or the tree limb broke so that he plunged downward and burst open on the rocks below. The topography around Jerusalem makes such a conclusion reasonable.
Also related to his death is the question of who bought the burial field with the 30 pieces of silver. According to Matthew 27:6, 7, the chief priests decided they could not put the money in the sacred treasury so they used it to buy the field. The account in Acts 1:18, 19, speaking about Judas, says: “This very man, therefore, purchased a field with the wages for unrighteousness.” The answer seems to be that the priests purchased the field, but since Judas provided the money, it could be credited to him. Dr. A. Edersheim pointed out: “It was not lawful to take into the Temple-treasury, for the purchase of sacred things, money that had been unlawfully gained. In such cases the Jewish Law provided that the money was to be restored to the donor, and, if he insisted on giving it, that he should be induced to spend it for something for the public weal [well-being]. . . . By a fiction of law the money was still considered to be Judas’, and to have been applied by him in the purchase of the well-known ‘potter’s field.’” (The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, 1906, Vol. II, p. 575)