Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 27:9

Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value;

9. that which was spoken by Jeremie the prophet ] The citation is from Zec 11:13, but neither the Hebrew nor the LXX. version is followed exactly. The Hebrew literally translated is: “And Jehovah said to me, ‘Cast it unto the potter,’ a goodly price that I was prized at by them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them unto the potter in the house of Jehovah.” Zechariah, under the image of a shepherd, refuses any longer to lead the disobedient and divided flock, and asks for the price of his hire, which he then casts into the treasury. The discrepancy is probably due to the citation being made from memory. The ascription of the words to Jeremiah instead of to Zechariah may be assigned to the same cause, or explained, with Lightfoot ( Hor. Hebr. ad loc.), by supposing that Jeremiah, who begins the Book of the Prophets in the Hebrew Canon, is intended to indicate the whole of that division of the Scriptures.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Spoken by Jeremy the prophet – The words quoted here are not to be found in the prophecy of Jeremiah. Words similar to these are recorded in Zec 11:12-13, and from that place this quotation has been doubtless made. Much difficulty has been experienced in explaining this quotation. In ancient times, according to the Jewish writers; Jeremiah was reckoned the first of the prophets, and was placed first in the Book of the Prophets, thus: Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the twelve minor prophets. Some have thought that Matthew, quoting this place, quoted the Book of the Prophets under the name of that which had the first place in the book, that is, Jeremiah; and though the words are those of Zechariah, yet they are quoted correctly as the words of the Book of the Prophets, the first of which was Jeremiah. Others have thought that there was a mistake made by ancient transcribers, writing the name Jeremiah instead of Zechariah; and it is observed that this might be done by the change of only a single letter. It was often the custom to abridge words in writing them. Thus, instead of writing the name of Jeremiah in full, it would be written in Greek, Iriou. So Zechariah would be written Zion. By the mere change of Zinto I, therefore, the mistake might easily be made. Probably this is the correct explanation. Others have supposed that the words were spoken by Jeremiah, and that Zechariah recorded them, and that Matthew quoted them as they were – the words of Jeremiah. The passage is not quoted literally; and by its being fulfilled is meant, probably, that the language used by Zechariah on a similar occasion would express also this event. See the notes at Mat 1:22-23. It was language appropriate to this occasion.

The price of him that was valued – That is, the price of him on whom a value was set. The word rendered valued, here, does not, as often in our language, mean to esteem, but to estimate; not to love, approve, or regard, but to fix a price on, to estimate the value of. This they considered to be thirty pieces of silver, the common price of a slave.

They of the children of Israel did value – Some of the Jews, the leaders or priests, acting in the name of the nation.

Did value – Did estimate, or fix a price on.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 9. Jeremy the prophet] The words quoted here are not found in the Prophet Jeremiah, but in Zec 11:13. But St. Jerome says that a Hebrew of the sect of the Nazarenes showed him this prophecy in a Hebrew apocryphal copy of Jeremiah; but probably they were inserted there only to countenance the quotation here.

One of Colbert’s, a MS. of the eleventh century, has , Zechariah; so has the later Syriac in the margin, and a copy of the Arabic quoted by Bengel. In a very elegant and correct MS. of the Vulgate, in my possession, written in the fourteenth century, Zachariam is in the margin, and Jeremiam in the text, but the former is written by a later hand. Jeremiah is wanting in two MSS., the Syriac, later Persic, two of the Itala, and in some other Latin copies. It is very likely that the original reading was , and the name of no prophet mentioned. This is the more likely, as Matthew often omits the name of the prophet in his quotations. See Mt 1:22; Mt 2:5; Mt 2:15; Mt 13:35; Mt 21:4. Bengel approves of the omission.

It was an ancient custom among the Jews, says Dr. Lightfoot, to divide the Old Testament into three parts: the first beginning with the law was called THE LAW; the second beginning with the Psalms was called THE PSALMS; the third beginning with the prophet in question was called JEREMIAH: thus, then, the writings of Zechariah and the other prophets being included in that division that began with Jeremiah, all quotations from it would go under the name of this prophet. If this be admitted, it solves the difficulty at once. Dr. Lightfoot quotes Baba Bathra, and Rabbi David Kimchi’s preface to the prophet Jeremiah, as his authorities; and insists that the word Jeremiah is perfectly correct as standing at the head of that division from which the evangelist quoted, and which gave its denomination to all the rest. But Jeremiah is the reading in several MSS. of the Coptic. It is in one of the Coptic Dictionaries in the British Museum, and in a Coptic MS. of Jeremiah, in the library of St. Germain. So I am informed by the Rev. Henry Tattam, Rector of St Cuthbert’s, Bedford.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

9. Then was fulfilled that which wasspoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying (Zec 11:12;Zec 11:13). Never was acomplicated prophecy, otherwise hopelessly dark, more marvellouslyfulfilled. Various conjectures have been formed to account forMatthew’s ascribing to Jeremiah a prophecy found in the book ofZechariah. But since with this book he was plainly familiar, havingquoted one of its most remarkable prophecies of Christ but a fewchapters before (Mat 21:4;Mat 21:5), the question is onemore of critical interest than real importance. Perhaps the trueexplanation is the following, from LIGHTFOOT:”Jeremiah of old had the first place among the prophets, andhereby he comes to be mentioned above all the rest in Mt16:14; because he stood first in the volume of the prophets (ashe proves from the learned DAVIDKIMCHI) therefore he isfirst named. When, therefore, Matthew produceth a text of Zechariahunder the name of Jeremy, he only cites the words of the volume ofthe prophets under his name who stood first in the volume of theprophets. Of which sort is that also of our Saviour (Lu24:41), ‘All things must be fulfilled which are written of Me inthe Law, and the Prophets, and the Psalms,’ or the Book ofHagiographa, in which the Psalms were placed first.”

Mt27:11-26. JESUS AGAINBEFORE PILATEHESEEKS TO RELEASEHIM BUT AT LENGTHDELIVERS HIMTO BE CRUCIFIED.( = Mar 15:1-15; Luk 23:1-25;Joh 18:28-40).

For the exposition, see on Lu23:1-25; Joh 18:28-40.

Mt27:27-33. JESUSSCORNFULLY AND CRUELLYENTREATED OF THE SOLDIERS,IS LEDAWAY TO BECRUCIFIED. ( = Mar 15:16-22;Luk 23:26-31; Joh 19:2;Joh 19:17).

For the exposition, see on Mr15:16-22.

Mt27:34-50. CRUCIFIXION ANDDEATH OF THE LORDJESUS. ( = Mar 15:25-37;Luk 23:33-46; Joh 19:18-30).

For the exposition, see on Joh19:18-30.

Mt27:51-66. SIGNS ANDCIRCUMSTANCES FOLLOWINGTHE DEATH OF THELORD JESUSHEIS TAKENDOWN FROM THE CROSS,AND BURIEDTHESEPULCHRE ISGUARDED. ( = Mar 15:38-47;Luk 23:47-56; Joh 19:31-42).

The Veil Rent (Mt27:51).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet,…. Through the purchasing of the potter’s field with the thirty pieces of silver, the price that Christ was valued at, a prophecy in the writings of the Old Testament had its accomplishment: but about this there is some difficulty. The evangelist here says it was spoken by Jeremy the prophet; whereas in his prophecy there is no mention of any such thing. There is indeed an account of his buying his uncle Hanameel’s son’s field, in

Jer 32:7, but not a word of a potter, or a potter’s field, or of the price of it, thirty pieces of silver; and that as a price at which he, or any other person was valued; but the passage which is manifestly referred to, stands in Zec 11:12, where are these words, “and I said unto them, if ye think good, give [me] my price, and if not, forbear; so they weighed for my price thirty [pieces] of silver: and the Lord said unto me, cast it unto the potter, a goodly price that I was prized at of them. And I took the thirty [pieces] of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord”: the removing of this difficulty, it might be observed, that the Syriac and Persic versions make no mention of any prophet’s name, only read, “which was spoken by the prophet”; and so may as well be ascribed to Zechariah, as to Jeremy, and better: but it must be owned, that Jeremy is in all the Greek copies, in the Vulgate Latin, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions, and in Munster’s Hebrew Gospel. Various things are said for the reconciling of this matter: some have thought that Zechariah had two names, and that besides Zechariah, he was called Jeremy; but of this there is no proof. Jerom y affirms, that in an Hebrew volume, being an apocryphal work of Jeremy, which was shown him by one of the Nazarene sect, he read these words verbatim: so that though they do not stand in the writings of Jeremy, which are canonical Scripture, yet in an apocryphal book of his, and which may as well be referred to, as the book of Maccabees, the traditions of the Jews, the prophecies of Enoch, and the writings of the Heathen poets. Moreover, Mr. Mede z has laboured, by various arguments, to prove, that the four last chapters of Zechariah were written by Jeremy, in which this passage stands; and if so, the reason is clear, for the citation in his name. But what seems best to solve this difficulty, is, that the order of the books of the Old Testament is not the same now, as it was formerly: the sacred writings were divided, by the Jews, into three parts: the first was called the law, which contains the five books of Moses; the second, the prophets, which contains the former and the latter prophets; the former prophets began at Joshua, and the latter at Jeremy; the third was called Cetubim, or the Hagiographa, the holy writings, which began with the book of Psalms: now, as this whole third and last part is called the Psalms, Lu 24:44, because it began with that book; so all that part which contained the latter prophets, for the same reason, beginning at Jeremy, might be called by his name; hence a passage, standing in the prophecy of Zechariah, who was one of the latter prophets, might be justly cited, under the name of Jeremy. That such was the order of the books of the Old Testament, is evident from the following passage a

“it is a tradition of our Rabbins, that the order of the prophets is, Joshua and Judges, Samuel and the Kings, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the twelve.”

Moreover, it is usual with them to say b, that the spirit of Jeremiah was in Zechariah; and it is very plain, that the latter prophets have many things from the former; and so might Zechariah have this originally from Jeremy, which now stands in his prophecy: all this would be satisfactory to a Jew: and it is to be observed, that the Jew c, who objects to everything he could in the evangelist, with any appearance on his side, and even objects to the application of this prophecy; yet finds no fault with him for putting Jeremy for Zechariah. That the prophecy in Zechariah belongs to the Messiah, and was fulfilled in Jesus, manifestly appears from the context, for as well as the text itself. The person spoken of is in Zec 11:4, called to “feed the flock of slaughter”, which being in a very poor condition, Zec 11:5, the state of the Jews, at the time of Christ’s coming, is hereby very aptly represented: he agrees to do it, Zec 11:7, and accordingly furnishes himself for it; but he is despised, abhorred, and rejected by the shepherds, the principal men in church and state; because he severely inveighed against their doctrines and practices, Zec 11:8, upon which he rejects them, and dissolves both their civil and church state; which can suit with no other times than the times of Jesus, Zec 11:9, and lest it should be thought that he used them with too much severity, he gives one single instance of their ingratitude to him, which shows how little they esteemed him; and that is, their valuing him at no greater a price than “thirty pieces of silver”, Zec 11:12, which were afterwards “cast unto the potter”. The Jews d themselves own, that this prophecy belongs to the Messiah, though they interpret it of him in another manner.

“Says R. Chanun, the Israelites will have no need of the doctrine of the king Messiah in the time to come; as it is said, Isa 11:10, “to him shall the Gentiles seek”, and not the Israelites: if so, for what does the king Messiah come? and what does he come to do? to gather the captives of Israel, and to give them the thirty precepts, as it is said, Zec 11:12, “and I said unto them, if ye think good”, c. Rab says, these are the thirty mighty men and Jochanan says, these are the thirty commands.”

Should it be objected, that supposing the Messiah is intended, the money is said to be given into his hands, and not into the hands of him that was to betray him; “if ye think good, give [me] my price”,

Zec 11:12: it may be replied, that the words , should not be rendered, “give me my price”, but “give my price”; i.e. give what you think fit to value me at, into the hands of the betrayer; and accordingly they did: “so they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver”, Zec 11:12; which is the very sum the chief priests agreed with Judas for, and which he received; see Mt 26:15, and if it should be objected to the citation of the evangelist, that it is considerably different from the word of the prophet, it being in the latter, “I took the thirty pieces of silver”; whereas in the former, the words are quoted thus,

saying, and they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value: it may be observed, that the word which Matthew uses may be rendered, “I took”, as it is in the Syriac version; and that the thirty pieces of silver were the goodly price, at which the Messiah was valued by the children of Israel, is manifest enough; and is an instance of egregious ingratitude, that this should be the price of the “innocent one”, as the Arabic Version renders the phrase, “of him that was valued”; of the “honoured one”, as the Ethiopic; of the “most precious one”, as the Syriac; he who in his person, and the perfections of his nature, is equal to his father, and his fellow; who has all the riches of grace and glory in him, as mediator; who is superior to angels, and fairer than the sons of men in human nature: is the chiefest among ten thousands, and more precious than rubies; and all the things that can be desired are not to be compared with him, and yet sold for a sum of money, the price of a slave, Ex 21:32, and that by the children of Israel, to whom the Messiah was promised; who expected him, and desired his coming; and who sprung from among them, and was sent unto them, and yet they received him not, but undervalued him in this exceeding mean way. Wicked men have no value for Christ; they sell him and themselves for nought; but gracious souls cannot value him enough, nor sufficiently express their esteem of him.

y In loc. z Mede’s Works, p. 963, 1022, 1023. a T. Bab. Bava Bathra, fol. 14. 2. Vid. Praefat. R. David Kimchici in Jer. b Sepher Hagilgulim apud Surenhus. Biblos Katallages, p. 41. c R. Isaac Chizzuk Emuna, par. 2. c. 25. p. 412. d Bereshit Rabba, sect. 98. fol. 85. 3, 4.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

By Jeremiah the prophet ( ). This quotation comes mainly from Zec 11:13 though not in exact language. In Jer 18:18 the prophet tells of a visit to a potter’s house and in Jer 32:6ff. of the purchase of a field. It is in Zechariah that the thirty pieces of silver are mentioned. Many theories are offered for the combination of Zechariah and Jeremiah and attributing it all to Jeremiah as in Mr 1:2f. the quotation from Isaiah and Malachi is referred wholly to Isaiah as the more prominent of the two. Broadus and McNeile give a full discussion of the various theories from a mere mechanical slip to the one just given above. Matthew has here (27:10) “the field of the potter” ( ) for “the potter the house of the Lord” in Zec 11:13. That makes it more parallel with the language of Mt 27:7.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

9. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet. How the name of Jeremiah crept in, I confess that I do not know nor do I give myself much trouble to inquire. The passage itself plainly shows that the name of Jeremiah has been put down by mistake, instead of Zechariah, (Zec 11:13😉 for in Jeremiah we find nothing of this sort, nor any thing that even approaches to it. Now that other passage, if some degree of skill be not used in applying it, might seem to have been improperly distorted to a wrong meaning; but if we attend to the rule which the apostles followed in quoting Scripture, we shall easily perceive that what we find there is highly applicable to Christ. The Lord, after having complained that his labors were of no avail, so long as he discharged the office of a shepherd, says that he is compelled by the troublesome and unpleasant nature of the employment to relinquish it altogether, and, therefore, declares that he will break his crook, and will be a shepherd no longer. He afterwards adds, that when he asked his salary, they gave him thirty pieces of silver. The import of these words is, that he was treated quite contemptuously as if he had been some mean and ordinary laborer. For the ceremonies and vain pretenses, by which the Jews recompensed his acts of kindness, are compared by him to thirty pieces of silver, as if they had been the unworthy and despicable hire of a cowherd or a day-laborer; and, therefore, he bids them throw it before a potter in the temple; as if he had said: “As for this fine present which they make to me, which would not be less dishonorable in me to accept than it is contemptuous in them to offer it, let them rather spend it in purchasing tiles or bricks for repairing the chinks of the temple.” To make it still more evident that Christ is the God of armies, towards whom the people had been from the beginning malicious and ungrateful, when he

was manifested in the flesh, (1Ti 3:16,)

it became necessary that what had formerly been spoken figuratively should now be literally and visibly accomplished in his person. So, then, when he was compelled by their malice to take leave of them, and to withdraw his labors from them as unworthy of such a privilege, they valued him at thirty pieces of silver. And this disdain of the Son of God was the crowning act of their extreme impiety.

The price of him that was valued. Matthew does not quote the words of Zechariah; for he merely alludes to the metaphor, under which the Lord then complains of the ingratitude of the people. But the meaning is the same, that while the Jews ought to have entirely devoted themselves, and all that they possessed, to the Lord, they contemptuously dismissed him with a mean hire; as if, by governing them for so many ages, he had deserved nothing more than any cowherd would have received for the labors of a single year. He complains, therefore, that though he is beyond all estimation, he was rated by them at so low a price.

Whom they of the children of Israel did value. This expression, which he uses towards the close, must be taken in a general sense. Judas had struck a bargain with the priests, who were the avowed representatives of the whole people; so that it was the Jews who set up Christ for sale, and he was sold, as it were, by the voice of the public crier. The price was such as was fit to be given to a potter.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(9) Then was fulfilled.Three questions present themselves, more or less difficult:(1) The words cited are found in our present Old Testament, not in Jeremiah, but in Zec. 11:13, and there is no trace of their ever having occupied any other place in the Hebrew Canon. How is this discrepancy to be explained? (a) Are we to assume an early error in transcription? Against this, there is the fact that MSS. and versions, with one or two exceptions, in which the correction is obviously of later date, give Jeremiah and not Zechariah. (b) May we fall back upon the Jewish notion that the spirit of Jeremiah had passed into Zechariah; or that Jeremiah, having, at one time, stood first in the Jewish order of the Prophets, was taken as representing the whole volume, as David was of the whole Book of Psalms? This is possible, but it hardly falls within the limits of Probability that the writer of the Gospel would deliberately have thus given his quotation in a form sure to cause perplexity. (c) May we believe that the writer quoted from memory, and that recollecting the two conspicuous chapters (18 and 19) in which Jeremiah had spoken of the potter and his work, he was led to think that this also belonged to the same group of prophecies? I am free to confess that the last hypothesis seems to me the most natural and free from difficulty, unless it be the difficulty which is created by an arbitrary hypothesis as to the necessity of literal accuracy in an inspired writing. (2) There is the fact that the words given by St. Matthew neither represent the Greek version of Zec. 11:13, nor the original Hebrew, but have the look of being a free quotation from memory adapted to the facts; and this, so far as it goes, is in favour of the last hypothesis. (3) It is hardly necessary to dwell on the fact that the words as they stand in Zechariah have an adequate historical meaning entirely independent of St. Matthews application of them. This, as we have seen again and again (Mat. 1:23; Mat. 2:15-18; Mat. 4:15; Mat. 8:17; Mat. 12:18), was entirely compatible with the Evangelists manner of dealing with prophecy. It was enough for him that the old words fitted into the facts, without asking, as we ask, whether they were originally meant to point to them. The combination in one verse, as he remembered it, of the thirty pieces of silver and the potters field, was a coincidence that he could not pass over.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

9. Then was fulfilled Verified by an event of which the words were strikingly expressive. Jeremy This is no doubt a mistake of the transcribers. The true name is Zechariah, and the reference is to Zec 11:12-13. The mistake arose probably because the contracted form of the name Zechariah, which would be Zriou, was taken for Jriou, the contracted form of Jeremy. The passage is quoted for sense, and not word for word, as is often the case with the evangelists. Their inspired interpretation is always a guarantee for the true sense of the passage which they quote in substance.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘Then was fulfilled what was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him who was priced, whom certain of the children of Israel did price, and they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord appointed me.”

Surveying what had happened Matthew, or his sources, now recognised in them a deep significance. It brought to their minds a number of prophecies, one in Zechariah, and two in Jeremiah. This practise of stringing prophecies together was quite common in Jesus’ day. Compare Mar 1:2-3, and there also it was the last prophecy referred to which was dignified with the name of the prophet. Note that the emphasis in the passage just prior to the quotation is much more on the potter’s field, than on the price paid. ‘They bought — the potter’s  field  — that  field  was called, the Field  of Blood’ (Mat 27:7-8). And that that is then immediately followed by the reference to the quotation. It is the field which is being emphasised.

The suggestion that here Matthew made a mistake which remained uncorrected is naive. He knew perfectly well who had spoken of thirty pieces of silver which were ‘cast to the potter’ (Zec 11:12 MT). But he also knew who had spoken of buying an earthen vessel from a potter in order by it to indicate God’s judgment, something which was then specifically connected with the Elders and Senior Priests of the people (Jer 19:1), and who had then spoken of buying a field whose deeds were put in a potter’s earthenware container, as an indication both of God’s coming deliverance, and His judgment (Jer 32:6-29). And this would have been especially significant to him in that in Jer 19:6 reference is made to a change of name to ‘the Valley of Slaughter’ (compare ‘the field of Blood’). Thus to him it was quite clear that God was ‘filling to the full’ what He had prophesied. Here all was being acted out before them.

This is further backed up by the fact that he uses the phrase here which he only elsewhere uses to introduce a quotation from Jeremiah (Mat 2:17). The other previous named prophecies (Mat 3:3 to Mat 15:7, see also Mat 20:28), which have different introductions and are Isaianic, have been put within a Jeremaic sandwich (Mat 2:17 and here). (See ‘that it might be fulfilled’ in the introduction). The prophet of Doom and Death thus encloses the promises of the prophet of Deliverance and Life.

Excursus on The Prophecy Concerning the Potter’s Field.

The quotation found here has produced what has been seen by some as a problem, for at first sight it appears to be citing words from Zechariah, when it is said by Matthew to be citing Jeremiah. But such a problem only arises because they fail to recognise the citations from Jeremiah in the last part of the ‘quotation’ (Mat 27:10). Matthew clearly considers these last as important enough to draw attention to them by referring to Jeremiah, whose words are thus seen as underlying the whole.

Certainly it is true that the first part of what is said is a loose citation from parts of Zec 11:12-13, but the main point of the citation is not to do with that, (that is simply indicating the value put on a prophet by the Temple authorities), but is on what was done with the price. And that was to purchase a field connected with a potter, the emphasis being on ‘field’ (Zec 11:7-8). And this last idea has in mind a combination of Jer 18:1-6 (where the people are clay in the Potter’s hands); Jer 19:1 (where the potter’s vessel made of such clay is bought and destroyed) and Jer 32:12-14 (where a field is bought whose deeds are placed in a clay jar, indicative of hope). This is what Matthew’s attribution of the prophecy to Jeremiah confirms. He was not in error when he cited Jeremiah. (And indeed in these ‘fulfilment’ contexts he only ever mentions Isaiah and Jeremiah). He was rather drawing attention to:

1). Where he wanted the emphasis to be placed, and

2). The connection of the citations with the longsuffering prophet who first forecast the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. The name of Jeremiah opens the named prophecies of Matthew at a time of suffering, and now closes them, again at a time of suffering.

This very fact tends to confirm that he is not using these quotations with a glib ‘O look, the prophecy has been fulfilled’ idea, but as an indication that what occurs in the Old Testament is filled to the full in the New. Perhaps here, in order to see this better, we should first list what Matthew tells us about the incident with Judas. He tells us that:

1). The chief priests and the elders took council against Jesus (Mat 27:1), (thereby bringing themselves under God’s judgment).

2). Judas brought back the thirty pieces of silver, which was the value set on Jesus as a prophet (see Mat 26:15), and then cast down the pieces of silver into the Sanctuary (Mat 27:3; Mat 27:5), an act which probably in his view cast some of his guilt back on the chief priests and elders.

3). The chief priest took the pieces of silver which were the price of blood and bought with them something which belonged to a potter, namely in this case a field, which was subsequently seen as defiled (Mat 27:6-7).

4). The field was renamed ‘the field of blood’.

With his wide knowledge of the Old Testament Matthew immediately saw here connections with three Old Testament prophecies, one of which was in Zechariah and two in Jeremiah, all of which in the Old Testament pointed to judgment coming on the elders and chief priests and those involved with them, and which, in the case of Jeremiah, were very much connected with a forthcoming destruction of the Temple. Matthew considered that now those prophecies were being ‘filled to the full’. Salvation history, and irrevocable judgment, were seen to be repeating themselves in Jesus.

To us the combinations found here may be a little complicated, but we must remember that Matthew’s initial Jewish and Jewish-Christian readers would be more used to such combinations. We may present them as follows:

1). In Jer 19:1 the same ‘elders of the people and the elders of the priests’ (compare the elders and the chief priests – Mat 27:1) were connected with an incident in which Jeremiah purchased from a potter an earthen container which he would use in order to reveal that they were under God’s judgment by hurling it into a valley, the name of which would be altered to ‘the valley of slaughter’. In the same way in Matthew 27 the chief priests and elders would purchase something from a potter which would indicate judgment on themselves, and its name was altered to ‘the field of blood’). In Zec 11:11-12 similarly the chief priests (the traffickers of the sheep who pay the wages of Temple prophets) are acting against Zechariah, and they pay out thirty pieces of silver as the value of a prophet, which is cast to the potter.

2). In Zec 11:11-12 the price of thirty pieces of silver was paid as the value of a prophet, (as in Mat 26:15; Mat 27:3; Mat 27:5) but the prophet, in accordance with God’s word, cast it to the potter in the house of the Lord (the one who probably made the sacred vessels) as an indication of judgment on them. In Jer 19:10   the earthen container  bought from the potter was similarly cast down in front of his opponents (compare Mat 27:5), in the Valley of Hinnom, again in his case as a symbol of judgment against the elders and chief priests, and as a portent of the coming destruction of Jerusalem.

3). In Jer 19:1 an earthen container was bought from a potter which would be used to indicate defilement and judgment (compare Mat 27:6-8). And in Jer 32:7-14 a field was bought, whose title deeds were put in  an earthen container  similar to that bought from the potter in Mat 19:1 (see Jer 32:14 with Mat 19:1, and compare Mat 27:10). This purchase of land would be evidence that after judgment had come on Jerusalem and it had been burned down, mercy would eventually follow so that fields would have value again (Jer 32:15). Meanwhile the earthen container that had been broken in Jer 19:10 had been cast down in a defiled place (19. 3-13), symbolising that Jerusalem was defiled (Mat 19:13). Compare Mat 27:5.

4). In Jer 19:6 the valley where the casting down took place had its name changed to the Valley of Slaughter (compare Mat 27:8).

The comparisons reveal why Matthew could see how these Old Testament passages, as brought together as one, (although he could have used them individually and protracted the narrative), were finding a ‘filling full’ (eplerowthe) in what happened in Matthew 27. He is demonstrating how what had happened with the prophets at the hands of the Jewish leaders, had also happened in the case of Jesus at the hands of the Jewish leaders, thus paralleling Him with Jeremiah, while at the same time showing that all that had happened between Jeremiah and the Elders and Senior Priests was summed up in Him and His relationships to the Chief Priests and Elders. Jesus’ opponents were ‘filling up’ (plerowsate) the measure of their fathers who had persecuted the prophets (compare Mat 23:32-36).

The same people were thus seen to be involved in Zechariah/Jeremiah (the elders and leading priests) as in Mat 27:1; the same amount of money was involved in both cases (thirty pieces of silver); something was purchased from a potter in both examples (Jer 19:1; Mat 27:10) which indicated judgment on the elders and chief priests; something was cast down indicating judgment on the chief priests and elders in both (Zec 11:13 /Jer 19:10 and in Mat 27:5); in the case of Mat 27:10 a field connected with a potter was bought, and in the case of Zechariah/Jeremiah, as an evidence of the coming judgment and the hope that would follow, a field was bought whose title deeds were put in an earthen container (Jer 32:14) which container was similar to that bought from a potter (Jer 19:1), and thirty pieces of silver were cast to the potter in the house of the Lord (Zec 11:13); in both Mat 27:7 and Zechariah/Jeremiah land was seen as defiled (Jer 19:13); in both cases there was a change of name to something gruesome (Mat 27:8 /Jer 19:6). And through what was signified by the purchases from the potters, and by the purchase of the field, judgments were threatened on Jerusalem which would result in Jerusalem being destroyed (Mat 27:25 with Mat 23:37; Mat 24:15-20 /Jer 19:7-9), although each also pointed forward to a future hope after judgment for God’s true people (Jer 32:15, see also Jer 31:37-40).

Matthew therefore wanted his readers, as a result of this joint citation, and especially as a result of his reference to Jeremiah, to consider the whole background behind them as considered above and connect them with what was happening in these last chapters of his Gospel. Far from being a naive citation it is a deeply thought out application of Scripture, and required similar application from his readers who with their knowledge of the Scriptures would more appreciate what was in Matthew’s mind than some of us might.

Perhaps it will assist in an appreciation of what Matthew is saying if we place the prophecies, and their ‘filling full’, side by side.

MATTHEW Zechariah 11 /Jeremiah 19/32 They took the thirty pieces of silver they weighed for my hire thirty pieces of silver (Z).  The price of Him Who was priced, the goodly price that I was valued at by them (Z)  Whom certain of the children of Israel did price,  And they gave them for the field Buy you my field and put the title deeds  in an earthen container (J32).  Of the potter Buy a potter’s earthen container (J19).  cast it to the potter — in the house of YHWH (Z).  As the Lord appointed me. Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord (J32).  (Almost this phrase is found in  Jos 24:31 LXX with autois instead of moi). It is thus connected with covenant renewal.

We thus see here a combination of ideas in Zechariah 11 and Jeremiah 19, 32, which is associated with ideas in Mat 27:1-10, with the initial ‘they’ in all cases referring to the chief priests and the elders.

In Mat 27:10 we have reference to a purchase made in connection with a potter (for which compare Zec 11:13 /Jer 19:1), and the purchase of a field (for which compare Jer 32:25) as something which can be described as ‘what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet’, thus drawing attention to the place of Jeremiah 19/32 in the scheme. This concerned something which ‘was purchased’ in connection with a potter, namely in Matthew’s case ‘the field connected with a potter’ and it is done ‘as the Lord appointed me’. The reference to being ‘spoken by Jeremiah the prophet’ would serve to confirm that we must look in Jeremiah for such an event or events, and there we find both a purchase of an earthenware vessel from a potter, and the purchase of a field, connected with an earthenware vessel (made by a potter), both being significantly connected with the Jewish leaders and being at the command of the Lord. All this then connects with the thirty pieces of silver being cast to the potter (Zechariah 11). They are cast to the potter (Zechariah 11), used to buy an earthenware vessel from a potter (Jeremiah 19), while an earthenware vessel then contains the deed from the purchase of a field (the earthenware representing the people of Israel (Jer 18:6).

The simmering Chief Priests and Elders in the days of Jesus were thus filling full the behaviour of their fathers who had had the same attitude towards Zechariah and Jeremiah (compare Mat 23:32-36), and the implication might well be that they will suffer the same end, although it is not spelled out here. (The complicated connections might be seen as revealing the devious thinking of a tax collector).

The earthen vessel/container, which is bought from the potter in Jer 19:1 and which contains the deeds of the property bought in Jer 32:12-14, is one of the key ideas that connects the two passages in Jeremiah, the others being the connection with the chief priests and elders and the common theme of judgment, although in the case of Jer 32:12-25 partly a judgment reversed, (but see Jer 32:25), while the idea of buying from the potter in Jer 19:1 connects with the thirty pieces of silver cast to the potter in Zechariah 11. (It was common practise in Matthew’s time to connect Old Testament verses by key words and key ideas). Matthew therefore sees the purchase of a field connected with a potter for thirty pieces of silver as too much of a coincidence not to be seen ‘filling to the full’ these combined prophecies, when they are all connected with the behaviour of the leaders of the Jews towards God’s prophets, and in the case of Jeremiah with the destruction of Jerusalem, although with hope lying beyond.

The ‘quotation’ in Mat 27:9-10 is thus not just a single quotation, and is certainly not one which is seen as having been naively ‘fulfilled’, but is a carefully worked statement on the basis of a combination of Old Testament passages, at least one of which we would expect to find in Jeremiah because of the ascription. This method of combining prophecies together under the name of the one name considered most crucial (or possibly the last quoted) is also found in Mar 1:2-3 where words from Malachi and Isaiah are combined under the name of Isaiah. Compare also Rom 3:10-18 which is a miscellany under ‘as it is written’, although no one is named there.

It is clearly not therefore accidental that in Matthew the account of the consequences of Judas’ betrayal follows immediately on the description of the betrayal of Jesus by the chief priests and elders of the people (Mat 27:1-3, see also Mat 27:12; Mat 27:20). It is because he intends to connect them with this theme from the prophets. The prophecies may well therefore be seen as having influenced the order in which Mat 27:1-10 was written, although not in such a way as to distort the truth. (Had he been inventing all this he could easily have made the parallels much closer).

And we are almost certainly intended to see from this that the dire things that happened to Judas as a consequence of what he did, were a warning also of worse things to come on the chief priests and elders of the people because of what they would do, with the words of Zechariah and Jeremiah, and the connection with a ‘field connected with a potter’ (Mat 27:7; Mat 27:10), all of which are connected with the idea of judgment on the leaders of the Jews, being seen as a confirmation of it. The potter’s field, the Field of Blood, stood as a witness against Israel ‘to this day’. Indeed the vivid description in Jer 19:7-9 is so descriptive of the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans that had it not been totally impossible we might have felt it necessary to declare that it was written after that siege, thus dating Jeremiah in 80-90 AD!

So we may sum up by saying that while he cited Zechariah’s words first, Matthew’s ascription of the whole citation to Jeremiah demonstrates that it is Jeremiah’s contribution that he sees as finally basic to the lesson being taught, because it was his words that were the specific symbol of Israel’s judgment (or alternately because Jeremiah’s contribution comes last, but in this case as we have seen he had a purpose in mentioning Jeremiah). This is why he mentions Jeremiah, indicating that that is the clue as to where we should look for the significance of the event. Furthermore the fact that the potter’s field in Matthew was bought for burying Gentiles in, and that burials were a reminder of coming death, might further have suggested to Matthew the many Gentiles as well as Jews who would die in the coming destruction of Jerusalem as forecast by Jesus (Matthew 24; see especially Luk 21:20). It certainly adds to the overall sense of death and judgment.

End of Excursus.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Mat 27:9-10. Then was fulfilled, &c. I. Concerning this prophesy we must, first, remark, that Zachary, not Jeremy, is the prophet in whose writings this passage is found. Some learned men have supposed, that there might have been such a passage as this in some of Jeremiah’s writings, which were extant in the apostles’ times, but now are lost; and indeed St. Jerome expressly affirms, that these very words were read by him in an apocryphal book of the prophet Jeremy; and as we find in 2Ma 2:1-9 many words said to have been spoken by the prophet Jeremy, which are not in the book of his prophesy, why might not these words also have been spoken by him, and kept in memory, or in some writing, till the time of Zachary? of whom it is observable, that he loved to use the words of Jeremiah, as appears on comparing many passages; whence the Jews used to say, that the spirit of Jeremiah was in Zechariah; and so both made but one prophet: and Mr. Mede thinks it highly probable that Jeremiah wrote the 9th, 10th, and 11th chapters of Zechariah, in the last of which these words are found. Others assert, that, as the Jews place Jeremiah’s prophesy first of the sixteen, the whole book of the prophets might be called by the single name of Jeremiah; so that by quoting Jeremiah, the book of the prophets, or the collection of prophesies in general, was quoted; just as by the Psalms they meant the hagiographa, or the moral books of Scripture in general, because the Psalms were placed at the head of this collection. See Luk 24:27. Though the present reading is certainly very ancient, it appears to me verydoubtful, whether any prophet’s name was mentioned in the first copies, as the Syriac version, which is allowed to have been made in the most early times, reads only, which was spoken by the prophet; and St. Austin tells us, that in his time there were many Greek Copies, in which no particular name of any prophet was inserted. We may therefore well conclude, that the passage stood originally without any prophet’s name, which was afterwards inserted from some marginal remark, and so has remained ever since Origen’s time; a full proof, as it appears to me, not of what the enemies of Christianity would object, but entirely of the contrary; namely, that the writings of the New Testament, so far from being in any degree corrupted, have been preserved with such a scrupulous exactness, that the preservers of them have not presumed to alter a tittle even in points of the least consequence, and where they might have been justified; a reflection of great importance, and of much comfort to every true believer in these sacred books. II. Now, secondly, with respect to the prophesy itself, we refer to the notes on Zec 11:13. St. Matthew does not quote entirely either from the Hebrew or the LXX. but rather gives the sense than theexact words of the prophet; but by following the Syriac version, the passage may be translated thus, more agreeably to the original: “I have received of the children thirty pieces of silver,the price of him that was valued, to buy the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me.” Dr. Doddridge observes, “as for the general propriety of applying these words on this occasion, it may well be vindicated; for the connection and sense of the prophesy seems to be this: in order to represent to Zechariah the contempt which Israel put upon their God, he had a vision to the following purpose: he thought God first appointed him to appear among them as a shepherd, making him, by that emblem, a representation of himself. After some time he directs him to go to the rulers of Israel, and ask them what they thought he deserved for his laboursin that office. They give him the price of a slave, thirty pieces of silver, and this in the house of the Lord, where the court sat. On this, God, as relentingthis indignity offered to him in the person of his prophet, orders him to throw it down with disdain before the first poor labourer he met,who happened to be a potter at work by the temple gates,as a fitter price for a little of his paltry ware, than a suitable acknowledgment of the favours they had received from God. Now surely if there was ever any circumstance in which the children of Israel behaved themselves so as to answer this visionary representation, it must be when they gave this very sum of thirty pieces of silver, as a price for the very life of that person whom God had appointed their great Shepherd: and, in order to point out the correspondence more sensibly, Providence so ordered it, that the person to whom this money went should be a potter, though the prophesy would have been answered, if he had been a fuller, or of any other profession.” It may also be further observed, that God’s ceasing to be the Shepherd of Israel, which was represented by the prophet’s breaking his pastoral staves, was never fully answered, till their final rejection after the death of Christ, which may further lead us to refer the affront of their giving the pieces of silver to this event. See Zechariah 11. We shall make some further remarks on this subject, when we come to the first chapter of the Acts. Sir Norton Knatchbull reads the passage, and I took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was prized of the children of Israel:ver. 10. (and they gave them for the potter’s field) as the Lord commanded me.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Mat 27:9 f. ] when they bought this field for the thirty pieces of money.

The passage here quoted is a very free adaptation of Zec 11:12-13 , [32] being simply a slip of the memory (comp. Augustine, de cons. ev . iii. 8, and recently Keil himself, following Calvin and the Fathers), such, however, as might readily enough occur through a reminiscence of Jer 18:2 . Considering that in the original Hebrew the resemblance of this latter passage to Zechariah, as above, is sufficiently close to warrant the typical mode of interpretation (Credner, Beitr . II. p. 152 f.), it is arbitrary to maintain, in the somewhat uncritical fashion of Rupert, Lyra, Maldonatus, Jansen, Clericus, Friedlieb, that is spurious; or, on the other hand, to resort, as Origen, Euthymius Zigabenus, Kuinoel, Ewald have done, to the idea of some lost production of Jeremiah’s, or of some oral utterance that had never been committed to writing (see, above all, Calovius, who in support of this view lays great stress on ). As for the statement of Jerome, that he had seen the passage in a copy of Jeremiah belonging to some person at Nazareth, there can be no doubt that what he saw was an interpolation, for he also is one of those who ascribe the citation in question to Zechariah. No less arbitrary is the conjecture of Eusebius, Dem. ev. x. 4, that the Jews may have deleted the passage from Jeremiah; for though it reappears again in a certain Arabic work (Bengel, Appar. crit . p. 142), and in a Sahidic and a Coptic lectionary (see Michaelis, Bibl . IV. p. 208 ff.; Briefwechs . III. pp. 63, 89; Einleit . I. p. 264), it does so simply as an interpolation from our present passage. See Paulus, exeget. Handb . III. p. 615 ff.

According to the historical sense of Zechariah, as above, the prophet, acting in Jehovah’s name, resigns his office of shepherd over Ephraim to Ephraim’s own ruin; and having requested his wages, consisting of 30 shekels of silver, to be paid him, he casts the money, as being God’s property, into the treasury of the temple . “And they weighed for my wages thirty pieces of silver. Then Jehovah said to me: Cast it into the treasury, that handsome (ironically) sum of which they have thought me worthy! So I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them into the treasury that was in God’s house,” Ewald, Proph. ; Bleek in the Stud. u. Krit . 1852, p. 279 ff. For we ought to read , into the treasury (equivalent, as Kimchi explains, to , and as is actually the reading of two MSS. in Kennicott), and not , to the potter , as Matthew, in fact, also read and understood the words, though such a meaning is entirely foreign to the context in Zechariah. Comp. Hitzig, kl. Proph . p. 374. The expositors of Zechariah, who take in the sense of potter , have had recourse to many an unfounded and sometimes singular hypothesis. For specimens of these, see also Hengstenberg’s Christol . III. 1, p. 457 ff.; Hofmann, Weissag. u. Erf . II p. 128 f.; Lange, L. J. II. p. 1494 f.; Steinmeyer, p. 105 f.; Haupt, alttest. Citate , p. 272 ff.

] in Zechaiah and LXX. is the first person singular, here it is the third person plural. The liberty thus used with the terms of the quotation may be supposed to be warranted by the concluding words: . Neither the original Hebrew nor the LXX. countenances the supposition that the evangelist erroneously took to be third person plural, like immediately following (in opposition to Hilgenfeld).

.] meaning, according to the typical reference in Matthew, the thirty shekels brought back by Judas .

, . . .] In apposition with . . The words correspond more with the Hebrew than with the LXX., though in this instance too a slight liberty is taken with them, inasmuch as for we have once more (comp. on ) the third person plural , and for the explanatory rendering . The passage then is to be rendered as follows: And they took the thirty pieces of silver the value of the highly valued One, on whom they put their own price (middle, ) at the instance of sons of Israel , i.e. the price of the priceless One, whose market value they fixed for themselves upon an occasion furnished by sons of Israel . The expression is the plural of category (Mat 2:20 ), and is regarded as finding its historical antitype in Judas , who, Mat 26:14 f., undertakes and carries through the shameful transaction there referred to, he a son of Israel negotiates the sale of the Messiah of the people of Israel. In addition to what has just been observed, we would direct attention to the following details: (1) is intended to represent the Hebrew word ( pretii ); but the evangelist has evidently read ( cari, aestumati ), which he refers to Jesus as being the highly valued One ; nor must we fail to notice here the remarkable collocation: pretium pretiosi, i.e . , Euthymius Zigabenus; comp. Theophylact, also Ewald. That distinguished personage, whose worth as such cannot in fact be estimated by any mere money standard ( ), they have actually valued ( ) at thirty shekels! To take the . merely in the sense of . ( of the valued one , him whom they have valued), as the majority of expositors do (including even yet de Wette, Lange, and Hofmann, Weissag. u. Erf . II. p. 130), instead of expressing the idea in a more forcible manner, would simply produce, especially after . , a tautological redundancy. (2) The subject of is the same as that of , namely, the high priests ; nor is the verb to be taken in the sense of estimating highly, as in the case of ., but in that of valuing, putting a price upon , the sense in which it is used in Isa 55:2 , and very frequently by classical writers, and in which the Hebrew is intended to be understood. (3) ., which is a more definite rendering of the of the original, must necessarily be connected, like its corresponding Hebrew expression, with , and not with (Fritzsche, Hilgenfeld), nor with . (which de Wette considers possible), and be understood as denoting origin, i.e. as denoting, in our present passage, the occasion brought about by some one (comp. also Bleek) in connection with which the took place; “ de eo ponitur, quod praebet occasionem vel opportunitatem, ut aliquid fieri possit,” Stallbaum, ad Plat. Rep . p. 549 A; comp. Khner, II. 1, p. 396; similarly xi. 19; see also Ellendt, Lex. Soph . I. p. 194. They were indebted to the sons of Israel (Judas, see above) for that which suggested and led to the . We cannot approve of the course which some adopt of supplying : equivalent to (Euthymius Zigabenus), or “ qui sunt ex filiis Israel” (Beza, Grotius, Maldonatus, Paulus, Kuinoel, Ewald, de Wette, Grimm, Anger), thus making . the subject of . In that case, the ordinary (comp. Buttmann, Neut. Gr . p. 138 [E. T. 158]) would have been used (as in Mat 23:34 ; Joh 16:17 , al. ), and instead of we should have had , inasmuch as the whole community would be intended to which the are supposed to belong. Comp. also 1Ma 7:33 , Mal 1:8Mal 1:8 , w here, though is the preposition used, the article is conjoined with the substantive following. The absence of the article here is likewise unfavourable to the views of Hofmann, Weissag. u. Erf . II. p. 131, who, taking to mean on the part of , interprets thus: “What Caiaphas and Judas did ( ), was done indirectly by the whole nation .” To explain as others have done, by assuming the idea of purchase in connection with it (Castalio: “quem licitati emerunt ab Israelitis,” comp. Erasmus, Luther, Vatablus, Jansen, Lange), is not only arbitrary, inasmuch as the idea involved in does not justify the supposed pregnant force of (Buttmann, p. 276 [E. T. 322]), but is incompatible with the of the original. No less inconsistent with the original is the explanation of Baumgarten-Crusius: “whom they had valued from among the children of Israel ,” that is to say, “which they had fixed as the price of one of the children of Israel.” In that case, again, we should have required the article along with ; and, besides, what a poor designation of the Messiah would be the result of such an interpretation! With an equal disregard of the terms of the passage, Linder maintains, in the Stud. u. Krit . 1859, p. 513, that is equivalent to : as an Israelite (whom they treated like a slave); and to the same effect is the explanation of Steinmeyer, p. 107: whom they have valued in the name of the nation . Neither the simple nor the anarthrous . admits of being so understood, although Hilgenfeld is also of opinion that our passage meant to describe the betrayal as an act for which the whole body of the Jewish people was to be held responsible . Mat 27:10 . .] Zech., as above, . But, inasmuch as the important matter here was the purchase of the potter’s field, Matthew leaves entirely out of view, takes in the sense of potter (see, on the other hand, on Mat 27:9 above), and, in order that may fully harmonize with a typical and prophetic view of the passage, he paraphrases the words thus: , where is intended to express the destined object of the thing: for the purpose of acquiring the field belonging to the potter.

] corresponds to Zechariah’s , Mat 27:13 , the words employed by the prophet when he asserts that in casting the shekels into the treasury of the temple he did so in obedience to the command of God. In accordance with the typical reference ascribed to the passage by Matthew, the words “ according to that which the Lord commanded me ” are so applied as to express the idea that the using of the traitor’s reward for the purpose of buying the potter’s field was simply giving effect to the decree of Him from whom the prophet had received the command in question. That which God had commissioned the prophet ( ) to do with the thirty pieces of silver is done in the antitypical fulfilment of the prophecy by the high priests, who thus carry out the divine decree above referred to. , just as (Xen. Mem . iv. 6. 5; Polyb. iii. 107. 10; Lucian, Cont. 24; Diod. Sic. i. 36; in classical Greek is usually employed), occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It is quite possible that the words used in the Hebrew original of Matthew were or , which in the LXX. are likewise rendered by , Exo 9:12 ; Exo 40:25 ; Num 8:3 .

[32] If the evangelist had meant to combine two different predictions (Hofmann, Weissag. u. Erf . II. p. 128 f.; Haupt, alttest. Citate , p. 286 ff.), then, according to the analogy of Mat 2:23 , we should have expected the words to be used. But, in short, our quotation belongs so exclusively to Zechariah, that candour forbids the idea of a combination with Jer 18 , as well as the view adopted by Hengstenberg (comp. Grotius), that Zechariah reproduces the prediction of Jeremiah. For a detailed enumeration of the various attempts that have been made to deal with the inaccurate use of , consult Morison, who follows Clericus in holding that there must have been a transcriber’s error in the very earliest copy of our Gospel.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

DISCOURSE: 1407
THE DISPOSAL OF THE MONEY PAID TO THE TRAITOR JUDAS

Mat 27:9-10. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value; and gave them for the potters field, as the Lord appointed me.

THE more we consider the number and minuteness of the prophecies, the more we must be convinced that Jesus was the person whom God had fore-ordained to be the Saviour of the world. One can scarcely imagine it possible, that an uninspired person should venture to predict such remarkable circumstances, as the precise sum that should be paid for the Saviours blood, and the ultimate disposal of that money in the purchase of a potters field; or that such predictions should be fulfilled by chance. St. Matthew was more careful than any of the other Evangelists in adducing these proofs of Christs Messiahship. But the passage cited by him as from Jeremiah, is to be found only in the prophecies of Zechariah. To account for this, many ingenious conjectures have been offered by learned men: but the most probable of them seems to be, either that the name, being abbreviated, was mistaken by some early transcriber, and from thence copied by others [Note: This might easily be, as the mistake would be only of one letter, for . In some copies the name is so abbreviated.]; or that, no name being mentioned by the Evangelist, an early transcriber inserted erroneously the name of Jeremiah in the margin, from whence it was afterwards incorporated with the text [Note: Some Versions insert no name at all, but read the passage thus; Spoken by the Prophet.]. Whatever way we take of solving the difficulty, the fact remains the same, that the peculiar circumstances in the text were foretold many hundred years before their accomplishment.

The words of the prophet, according to their literal import, record a transaction that took place between the prophet and the Jews. The prophet, as Gods agent and representative among them, demanded, What value they set upon his labours? They despising both him and the Deity from whom he had received his commission, weighed for his price thirty pieces of silver: upon which, God, indignant at such an insult, ordered him to cast them away to a poor potter, who was at that time working in the temple [Note: See Zec 11:12-13.]. Under this figure God intended to foreshew how the Jews would undervalue the great Prophet whom he should send among them; and how the thirty pieces of silver, which they would pay as the price of his blood, should be disposed of.

That we may give a practical turn to our subject, we shall deduce from the different parts of it some important observations:
1.

For how small a price do men sacrifice their interest in the Saviour!

[God himself exclaims with astonishment, A goodly price that I was prized at of them [Note: Zec 11:13.]! Thirty pieces of silver was the price of a slave [Note: Exo 21:32.]: and yet that was (in the estimation of the Jews) the value of Jehovahs mercies, and (in the eyes of Judas and the Jewish rulers) of the Redeemers blood. But we, it may be said, know how to form a different estimate of these things. Would to God we did! But there is no gain so small, no pleasure so transient, but we choose it in preference to Christ, and are willing to part with Christ rather than forego the gratification we desire. Let sinners of every description attest (for indeed, however reluctantly, they must attest) this melancholy truth ]

2.

How worthless will those things, for which we sold the Saviour, appear to us, as soon as conscience begins to perform its office!

[Judas had pleased himself with the thought of enjoying his ill-gotten wealth: but scarcely had he obtained it, before he was far more ready to part with it than ever he had been to procure it. Sin of every kind appears very different after we have committed it, from what it did under the immediate influence of temptation. While solicited by our own corrupt affections, we imagine that the particular object of our desire (whatever it may be) will conduce greatly to our happiness: but when we have swallowed the bait, then we begin to feel the hook; and oftentimes would gladly restore, if it were possible, all the pleasure we have felt, provided we could at the same time get rid of the sting that it has left behind. And what will be our views of sin, when once we come into the eternal world? How gladly would we then restore the thirty pieces of silver for which we have sold the Lord! Or, if through penitence and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ we have obtained mercy, with what indignation should we receive a proposal to forego an interest in the Saviour for some momentary pleasure, or some trifling gain! Ten thousand worlds would then appear to us as of no value in comparison of that inestimable pearl.]

3.

Of how little avail will it be at the last day, to have rendered unto God a partial and hypocritical obedience!

[We blame not the priests for refusing to put into the treasury the money which Judas cast down in the temple: for if the price of a dog, or the hire of a harlot, were not to be presented to God, much less ought money that had been the reward of treachery, and the price of blood. But we marvel at their hypocrisy, in that they could suborn false witnesses, and persecute unto death an innocent man, and yet profess the smallest reverence for God. Truly, while they strained out a gnat, they swallowed a camel. They hoped perhaps to compensate for their oppression of Jesus by their gratuitous kindness to strangers [Note: The field having been exhausted by the pottery, and rendered unfit for cultivation or pasture, was probably worth no more than what they gave for it, and applicable to no better purpose than that to which they destined it.]. Yet, if we know ourselves, we shall not greatly wonder: for we may find a transcript of this very thing in our own hearts. How many are there eminent for truth and honesty, who are yet habitually regardless of all the sublimer exercises of religion! With respect to the second table of the law, they are exemplary; but in their duties to God, they are altogether remiss. In the same manner, there are some who profess a great regard for the Gospel, who yet are defective in their adherence even to truth and honesty. Indeed there are very few, who do not notoriously fail in some one particular: so deceitful, and desperately wicked, is the heart of man. But it is certain that an observance of some duties will never procure us an exemption from others: if we keep the whole law, and yet offend knowingly and habitually in any one point, we are guilty of all, and shall be dealt with as contemners of the Lawgiver himself. And as the name, Aceldama, perpetuated the memory of the atrocious wickedness committed by the priests [Note: ver. 68. with Act 1:18-19.], so shall the very endeavours we use to conceal our impieties stamp them at last with indelible and eternal infamy.]

4.

How certainly shall every jot and tittle of Gods word be accomplished!

[Little did the chief priests think of fulfilling the Scriptures: and little do the contemners of God and his Christ reflect, that they will one day be exhibited as proofs of Gods veracity. But, as all the most contingent actions of men were infallibly foreseen, and not one single prediction, however improbable, ever failed of its accomplishment; so every promise and every threatening shall be fulfilled in its season, and the lot of men be fixed according to their true character. In this world, we see enough to assure us that God is true; but in the world to come, there shall be in all an irresistible demonstration of it: and every man, whether in heaven or in hell, shall be a living witness of his truth: the blessed shall inherit his promised mercies; the damned shall feel his threatened judgments. Let us consider then, that either our salvation or damnation lingereth not; and that the things spoken concerning us have an end.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

9 Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value;

Ver. 9. Then was fulfilled ] Those blind Pharisees not only observed not the sayings of the prophets which they daily read, but unwittingly also fulfilled them.

By Jeremiah the prophet ] Indeed by Zechariah the prophet; but either Jeremiah had two diffferent names (as was ordinary among that people), or else what Jeremiah had preached Zechariah long after committed to writing, as did likewise Obadiah, &c.

The price of him that was valued ] A goodly price set there upon God, for all his pastoral pains with that perverse people; and hereupon Christ (who is hereby proven to be God), for all his inestimable worth, and incomparable love to lost mankind. If we be at any time undervalued, as we are sure to be (for the world knows us not, 1Jn 3:2 ), what so great a matter is it? Was not the Lord Christ infinitely underrated?

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

9. ] The citation is not from Jeremiah (see ref.), and is probably quoted from memory and unprecisely; we have similar instances in two places in the apology of Stephen, Act 7:4 ; Act 7:16 , and in Mar 2:26 . Various means of evading this have been resorted to, which are not worth recounting. Jer 18:1-2 , or perhaps Jer 32:6-12 , may have given rise to it: or it may have arisen from a Jewish idea (see Wordsw. h. l.), “Zechariam habuisse spiritum Jeremi.” The quotation here is very different from the LXX, which see, and not much more like the Hebrew. I put it to any faithful Christian to say, whether of the two presents the greater obstacle to his faith, the solution given above, or that in Wordsw.’s note, that the name of one prophet is here substituted for that of another, to teach us not to regard the prophets as the authors of their prophecies, but to trace them to divine Inspiration.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Mat 27:9-10 . Prophetic reference , , as in Mat 2:17 , not or . , by Jeremiah, in reality by Zechariah (Zec 11:13 ), the reference to Jeremiah probably due to there being somewhat similar texts in that prophet (Jer 18:2-3 , Jer 32:6-15 ) running in the evangelist’s mind. A petty error. More serious is the question whether this is not a case of prophecy creating “facts,” whether the whole story here told is not a legend growing out of the O. T. text quoted. So Brandt, who thinks the betrayal the only fact in the story of Judas, all the rest legendary ( E. G. , p. 11). The truth rather seems to be that facts, historical traditions, suggested texts which otherwise would never have been thought of. This may be inferred from the manipulation necessary to make the prophecy correspond to the facts: , 1st person singular in Sept [149] , 3rd person plural here = they took; the expression “the children of Israel” introduced with apparent intention to make the nation responsible for the betrayal; the substitution of the phrase “the field of the potter” for “the house of the Lord”. And after all the manipulation how different the circumstances in the two cases! In the one case it is the prophet himself, valued at a petty sum, who cast his price into the House of the Lord; in the other, it is the priests, who bought the life of the prophet of Nazareth for a small sum, who give the money for a potter’s field. The only real point of resemblance is the small value set upon a prophet in either case. It is a most unsatisfactory instance of prophetic fulfilment, almost as much so as that in Mat 2:23 . But its very un-satisfactoriness makes for the historicity of the story. That the prophetic text, once associated with the story in the minds of believers, reacted on the manner of telling it, e.g. , as to the weighing of the price (Mat 26:15 ), and the casting of the money into the holy place (Mat 27:5 ), is conceivable.

[149] Septuagint.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

spoken. Not “written”, either by Jeremiah or Zechariah, but “spoken” by Jeremiah. Greek. to rhethen, not ho gegraptai. See App-161.

by = by means of, or by [the mouth of]. Greek. dia. App-104. Mat 27:1.

Jeremy = Jeremiah. of = from. Greek. apo. App-104.

children = sons. App-108.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

9.] The citation is not from Jeremiah (see ref.), and is probably quoted from memory and unprecisely; we have similar instances in two places in the apology of Stephen, Act 7:4; Act 7:16,-and in Mar 2:26. Various means of evading this have been resorted to, which are not worth recounting. Jer 18:1-2, or perhaps Jer 32:6-12, may have given rise to it: or it may have arisen from a Jewish idea (see Wordsw. h. l.), Zechariam habuisse spiritum Jeremi. The quotation here is very different from the LXX, which see,-and not much more like the Hebrew. I put it to any faithful Christian to say, whether of the two presents the greater obstacle to his faith, the solution given above, or that in Wordsw.s note, that the name of one prophet is here substituted for that of another, to teach us not to regard the prophets as the authors of their prophecies, but to trace them to divine Inspiration.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Mat 27:9. , …, the prophet, etc.) These words are clearly found in Zechariah, whose writings were well known to St Matthew; see ch. Mat 21:4-5; cf. App. Crit.[1175] p. 493 (Ed. ii. pp. 141, 142).- , …, and they took, etc.) In Zec 11:12-13, the LXX. have , , [1176] , , , , , . , -And I will say unto them, if it is good in your sight, weigh and give me my price, or else refuse it; and they weighed my price, thirty silver pieces. And the Lord said unto me, Cast them into the melting furnace, and I will assay it (whether it be good) in the same manner that I was assayed by them. And I took the thirty silver pieces, and cast them into the house of the Lord, into the melting furnace. The Evangelist regards the scope of the matter, and adds a paraphrase.- , , the value of Him that was valued, whom they valued) The force of the words is great.- -, precious, although in the Hebrew Bible it is , a price; see Louis de Dieu.- , from the children of Israel, or of the children of Israel) cf. Zec 11:13-, of them. The preposition , from, may be construed either with , they received-or rather with , they valued. The Chief Priests, as much as in them lay, alienated Christ from the children of Israel.

[1175] E. M. has .

[1176] The Vatican MS. omits the word .-(I. B.)

Beng. shows, in his Apparatus, Ed. ii., p. 141, 142, 493, that the word is a gloss, and that many modern writers wish to expunge it.-Not. Crit.

But the oldest authorities are against the omission. B reads . A and C corrected, . Hil. 747, Vulg. and c, and MSS. quoted in Origen, Euseb., and Jerome, read Jeremiah. It is only the later Syr. in the margin, and other recent authorities, read . ab, however, support the omission of Jeremiah or Zechariah, as Beng. would read. Comp. Jer 18:2. The quotation is not literatim from Zech.: Jer 18:1-2, and Jer 32:6-12, may have also been in the mind of Matthew. This may account for the presence of the name . Lightfoot thinks that the 3d division of Scripture, the Prophets, began with Jeremiah; and that the whole body of the prophets is thus quoted by the name Jeremiah, he refers to B. Bathra and D. Kimchi.-ED.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Jeremy

The allusion is to Jer 18:1-4; Jer 19:1-3 but more distinctly to Zec 11:12; Zec 11:13.

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

Jeremy: The words here quoted are not found in Jeremiah, but in Zechariah; and a variety of conjectures have been formed, in order to reconcile this discrepancy. The most probable opinion seems to be, that the name of the prophet was originally omitted by the Evangelist, and that the name of Jeremiah was added by some subsequent copyist. It is omitted in two manuscripts of the twelfth century, in the Syriac, later Persic, two of the Itala, and in some other Latin copies; and what renders it highly probable that the original reading was [Strong’s G1223], [Strong’s G5120], , by the prophet, is, that Matthew frequently omits the name of the prophet in his quotations. See note on Mat 1:22, Mat 2:5, Mat 2:15, Mat 13:35, Mat 21:4. This omission is approved of by Bengel, Dr. A. Clarke, and Horne.

And they: Zec 11:12, Zec 11:13

thirty: Mat 26:15, Exo 21:32, Lev 27:2-7

of the children of Israel did value: or, bought of the children of Israel

Reciprocal: Gen 37:28 – sold Lev 27:4 – thirty shekels Isa 53:3 – we hid as it were our faces from him Mat 27:24 – just

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

27:9

Was spoken by Jeremy [Jeremiah] the prophet. This prophecy is actually in the book of Zechariah, chapter 11:13. Various explanations have been offered for this apparent contradiction, but I consider the most reasonable one to be that which is based on the outstanding prominence of Jeremiah. He was so highly respected that he was looked upon as a sort of “dean of prophets,” and hence the prophecy was accredited to him in a complimentary or honorary sense.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value;

[That which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet.] How much this place hath troubled interpreters, let the famous Beza, instead of many others, declare: “This knot hath hampered all the most ancient interpreters, in that the testimony here is taken out of Zechariah, and not from Jeremiah; so that it seem plainly to have been a failing of memory; as Augustine supposes in his third book, ‘De consensu evagelistarum,’ chapter the seventh; as also Eusebius in the twentieth book of demonstration. But if any one had rather impute this error to the transcribers, or (as I rather suppose) to the unskillfulness of some person, who put in the name of Jeremiah; when the evangelist had writ only, as he often doth in other places, by the prophet; yet we must confess that this error hath long since crept into the Holy Scriptures, as Jerome expressly affirms,” etc.

But (with the leave of so great men) I do not only deny that so much as one letter is spurious, or crept in without the knowledge of the evangelist, but I do confidently assert that Matthew wrote Jeremy; as we read it, and that it was very readily understood and received by his countrymen. We will transcribe the following monument of antiquity out of the Talmudists, and then let the reader judge: “A tradition of the Rabbins. This is the order of the prophets. The Book of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the twelve.” And a little after: “But since Isaiah was before both Jeremiah and Ezekiel, he ought to have been set before them: but since the Book of Kings ends with destruction, and all Jeremiah is about destruction; and since Ezekiel begins with destruction and ends with comfort; and all Isaiah is about comfort, they joined destruction with destruction, and comfort with comfort “: that is, they placed these books together which treat of destruction, and those together which treat of comfort.

You have this tradition quoted by David Kimchi in his preface to Jeremiah. Whence it is very plain that Jeremiah of old had the first place among the prophets: and hereby he comes to be mentioned above all the rest, Mat 16:14; because he stood first in the volume of the prophets, therefore he is first named. When, therefore, Matthew produceth a text of Zechariah under the name of Jeremy; he only cites the words of the volume of the prophets under his name who stood first in the volume of the prophets. Of which sort is that also of our Saviour, Luk 24:44; “All things must be fulfilled, which are written of me in the Law, and the Prophets, and the Psalms.” “In the Psalms”; that is, in the Book of Hagiographa, in which the Psalms were placed first.

Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels

Mat 27:9. Then was fulfilled. The action of the Sanhedrin undesignedly fulfilled prophecy.

Jeremiah the prophet. No such words can be found in the book of Jeremiah, but something very similar occurs in Zec 11:12. Explanations: (1) Zechariah was changed into Jeremiah. Of this there is no positive proof of any weight, and there is no motive for the change. (2) The book of Jeremiah, being actually arranged by the Jews as the first of all the prophets, gave its name to the whole body of their writings. This is the simplest view. (3) The discrepancy was purposed; to show the unity of prophecy. Altogether unsatisfactory. (4) A mistake of memory. This is out of the question. Matthews other citations from Zechariah have no name prefixed (chap. Mat 21:5; Mat 26:31), but he must have known the name of the prophet. (5) The most improbable theories are, that the passage occurred in some work of Jeremiah which has been lost, or was an oral statement, or expunged by the Jews. (6) Lange refers the words as the Lord appointed me, to Jer 32:8. But that passage is very obscure. The view is more ingenious than satisfactory. We regard the whole as a free adaptation from Zec 11:13. Here the prophets labors are valued at thirty pieces of silver which he is bidden to cast to the potter in the house of the Lord. If we accept the words: a goodly price that I was prized at of them, as spoken to the prophet, the reference to the Messiah is undoubted. The word them is then expanded into the clause of the text: whom they priced on the part of the sons of Israel, referring to the contemptuous estimate (the price of a slave) put upon the Messiah by the representatives of the children of Israel, as in the case of the prophet. Others prefer to render it: bought from the children of Israel, finding a reference to the selling of Joseph, taking Judas as the representative of the nation. But the Greek means priced; Joseph was sold for twenty pieces of silver; the priests represented the nation.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Mat 27:9. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy The words here quoted are not in any copy of Jeremiah extant. But they bear a strong resemblance to the words of Zec 11:12-13. One MS., not of great account, has , of Zechariah. Another adds no name to the word prophet, and there is none added in the Syriac version, the words being only, which was spoken by the prophet. And it seems, from a remark of Augustine, that some copies in his time named no prophet. Indeed it is not improbable that the name Jeremiah was inserted by some officious transcriber. Or we may suppose, with Bishop Hall, that in copying the words, Jeremiah was put down for Zechariah, a blunder which transcribers might easily commit, especially if the names were written by abbreviation, for , as the bishop says he has seen in some ancient MSS. But if the present reading is retained, we may allow, that, as the Jewish Scriptures were divided into three parts, the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, what was found in the prophets might properly enough be said to be in Jeremiah, if his prophecies stood first in the collection, just as our Lord affirmed that whatever was in the Hagiographa concerning him, was contained in the Psalms, because the Psalms stood first in that division of the Scriptures. Or, we may adopt the solution offered by Grotius, who observes, that the Jews had many prophecies handed down to them by tradition, such as the prophecy of Enoch, Jdg 1:14-15, and the traditionary prophecies concerning the destruction of Jerusalem mentioned by Josephus, and that the later prophets often allude to and repeat the words of the former. He therefore declares it to be his opinion, that the prophecy concerning the thirty pieces of silver, recorded Zec 11:12-13, which represented symbolically, according to the manner of the prophets, the things that were to befall the Messiah, was originally acted and spoken by Jeremiah, as Matthew affirms; but that Zechariah, who in many particulars followed Jeremiah, was directed by the Spirit to repeat it afterward, and preserve it in writing among his other prophecies; and that the Jews had preserved the knowledge of this fact by tradition; wherefore, though it be now found in Zechariah, being originally spoken by Jeremiah, Matthew has committed no error here in referring it to him. See note on Zec 11:12-13.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Verse 9

Jeremy. The only passage now extant in the the prophetical writings of the Old Testament, to which this allusion can refer, is found, not in Jeremiah, but in Zechariah. (Zechariah 11:12,13.) Many ingenious explanations of this difficulty have been offered by the learned, but they are merely conjectural.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

27:9 Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by {e} Jeremy the prophet, saying, {f} And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value;

(e) As this prophecy is found in Zec 11:12 it cannot be denied that Jeremy’s name slipped into the text either through the fault of the Scribe, or by someone else’s ignorance: it may also be that it came out of the margin by means of the abbreviation on one of the letters, the one being “yod” and the other being “zayin”, which are very similar: But in the Syrian text the Prophet’s name is not written down at all.

(f) The evangelist does not follow the prophet’s words, but instead he follows the prophet’s meaning, which he shows to have been fulfilled.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

This difficult fulfillment seems to be a quotation from Zec 11:12-13, but Matthew attributed it to Jeremiah. Probably Matthew was referring to Jer 19:1-13, which he condensed using mainly the phraseology of Zec 11:12-13 because of its similarity to Judas’ situation. [Note: See Douglas J. Moo, "The Use of the Old Testament in the Passion Texts of the Gospels," (Ph.D. dissertation, University of St. Andrews, 1979), pp. 191-210; and Gundry, The Use . . ., pp. 122-27.] See Mar 1:2-3 and 2Ch 36:21 for other examples of this type of fulfillment involving the fusing of sources. Matthew named only Isaiah and Jeremiah as sources of his quotations (Mat 2:17; Mat 3:3; Mat 4:14; Mat 8:17; Mat 12:17; Mat 13:14; Mat 15:7; Mat 17:9); he left his other prophetic sources unspecified. He also attributed one allusion to Daniel (Mat 24:15).

"Joining two quotations from two Old Testament books and assigning them to one (in this case, Jeremiah) was also done in Mar 1:2-3, in which Isa 40:3 and Mal 3:1 are quoted but are assigned to Isaiah. This follows the custom of mentioning the more notable prophet first." [Note: Bailey, in The New . . ., p. 59.]

A different explanation of this problem is that Jeremiah was the first book in the prophets division of the Hebrew Old Testament. Jesus quoted Zechariah as from Jeremiah because the Book of Zechariah was in the section of the Hebrew Bible that began with the Book of Jeremiah. [Note: Lenski, pp. 1082-83; Walvoord, Matthew: . . ., p. 227.] However, it is uncertain that the Book of Jeremiah occupied this leading position in the third division of the Hebrew Bible in Matthew’s day. [Note: See The New Scofield . . ., p. 1041.]

In Jeremiah 19 Israel’s rulers had forsaken God and made Jerusalem a place for foreign gods. The valley where the prophet delivered his prophecy and where he smashed the vessel received the name "Valley of Slaughter," symbolic of Judah and Jerusalem’s ruin. Similarly in Matthew 26-27 the rejection of Jesus led to the polluting of a field that is symbolic of death and the destruction of Israel, which foreigners were about to bury. In Zechariah 11 and in Matthew 26-27 the people of Israel reject God’s shepherd and value him at the price of a slave. In both passages someone throws the money into the temple and eventually someone else uses it to buy something that pollutes.

". . . what we find in Matthew, including Mat 27:9-10, is not identification of the text with an event but fulfillment of the text in an event, based on a broad typology governing how both Jesus and Matthew read the OT . . ." [Note: Carson, "Matthew," p. 565.]

This understanding of the fulfillment also explains the changes Matthew made in the texts he said the events involving Judas fulfilled. Matthew saw in Jeremiah 19 and Zechariah 11 not just several verbal parallels but a pattern of apostasy and rejection that found its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus. [Note: See also Charles Lee Feinberg, God Remembers, A Study of Zechariah, pp. 167-69.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)