Day 265: Thirty Pieces of Silver, Two Prophets, and One Shepherd (Zechariah 11:12–13)

“Then I said to them, ‘If it seems good to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.’ And they weighed out as my wages thirty pieces of silver. Then the Lord said to me, ‘Throw it to the potter’—the handsome price at which they priced me! So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord, to the potter.” —Zechariah 11:12–13

⁹ Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel, ¹⁰ and they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord directed me.” —Matthew 27:9–10.

Through the Bible: Zechariah 10–14

I struggled with this verse today. On one hand, I know this verse was referenced by Matthew in the context of Judas’s betrayal of Jesus (see Matthew 27:9-10. And yes, I know Matthew seems to give the wrong Old Testament reference– attributing this to Jeremiah when it’s clearly Zechariah. We’ll get to that in a minute). But on the other hand, it seems really strange to apply this to Judas when the Shepherd in Zechariah 11 clearly seems to be Yahweh, or at the very least Zechariah speaking and acting on His behalf:

⁷ So I became the shepherd of the flock doomed to be slaughtered by the sheep traders. And I took two staffs, one I named Favor, the other I named Union. And I tended the sheep. ⁸ In one month I destroyed the three shepherds. But I became impatient with them, and they also detested me.

Zechariah 11:7–8 (ESV)

Had it been anyone other than the biblical writer Matthew applying this to Judas, I would say, “Ummmmm, really?—- that’s a stretch.”

But the more I looked at the passage, the more I realized that what initially made Matthew’s interpretation seem like a stretch is actually what makes it so powerful.

WHO IS THE SHEPHERD?

Zechariah is the one holding the staffs. He is the one tending the flock. He is the one asking for his wages. But throughout the enacted prophecy, Zechariah is playing the role of Yahweh, Israel’s rejected Shepherd.

You can see the lines between the prophet and God begin to blur in verse 10:

And I took my staff Favor, and I broke it, annulling the covenant that I had made with all the peoples.
—Zechariah 11:10

Zechariah hadn’t made a covenant with the peoples. God had. Zechariah is acting out God’s relationship with His people.

That makes what happens next even more insulting. The Shepherd essentially says, “If you think my work has been worth anything, pay me.”

And they do.

Thirty pieces of silver.

That number should sound familiar even before we get to Judas. According to Exodus 21:32, thirty shekels of silver was the compensation an owner received if someone’s ox killed his male or female slave.

That was their appraisal of the Shepherd.

And God responds with biting sarcasm:

“Throw it to the potter”—the lordly price at which I was priced by them!
—Zechariah 11:13

What I had initially thought was the problem with Matthew’s interpretation suddenly became the key to understanding it.

The Shepherd being rejected in Zechariah represents God.

And Matthew says: Look at Jesus.

ZECHARIAH OR JEREMIAH? YES.

But before we go any further, we need to deal with the other elephant in the room.

When Matthew quotes this passage, he says:

Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel, and they gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord directed me.”

Matthew 27:9–10 (ESV)

Except Jeremiah didn’t say that. Zechariah did. At least, most of it.

Matthew appears to be weaving together several Old Testament passages. The thirty pieces of silver and the money being thrown to the potter clearly come from Zechariah 11:12–13. But Matthew adds something Zechariah never mentions: a field purchased with the money.

And fields purchased with silver are very much a Jeremiah thing.

In Jeremiah 32, God tells Jeremiah to buy a field while Jerusalem is under siege. Jeremiah weighs out the silver, signs the deed, and purchases the field as a prophetic sign. And a few chapters earlier, in Jeremiah 18–19, God sends Jeremiah to a potter. Jeremiah later buys a potter’s earthenware flask and takes it to the Valley of Hinnom, where he announces God’s judgment because the people have filled the place with “the blood of innocents” (Jeremiah 19:4).

Now go back to Matthew.

Thirty pieces of silver.
A potter.
A field purchased with the silver.
A place associated with innocent blood.

Matthew isn’t simply quoting Zechariah and accidentally writing “Jeremiah” at the top. He seems to be bringing the two prophets together. Zechariah supplies the rejected shepherd, the thirty pieces of silver, and the potter. Jeremiah supplies the larger imagery of the potter, the purchased field, innocent blood, and judgment.

And Matthew names Jeremiah.

That still sounds strange to modern ears. We expect a quotation to work like a footnote: give me the author, chapter, and verse. Matthew is doing something more like a biblical collage. He sees several strands of Israel’s Scriptures coming together in the death of Jesus.

And that brings me back to what bothered me about Matthew’s use of Zechariah in the first place. I thought connecting Judas’s thirty pieces of silver to Zechariah 11 seemed like a stretch.

Now I’m not so sure.

Because Matthew isn’t merely connecting Judas to thirty pieces of silver. He is connecting Jesus to the rejected Shepherd.

And in Zechariah 11, that Shepherd represents Yahweh.

That’s not a problem with Matthew’s interpretation. It may be the point of it.

Matthew sees the story of the rejected Shepherd replayed in the betrayal of Jesus. The thirty pieces of silver aren’t just an interesting coincidence. The Shepherd who was rejected and contemptuously valued in Zechariah finds his ultimate fulfillment in Jesus.

And yet—this is the staggering thing—even when humanity valued him at thirty pieces of silver, heaven knew his infinite worth. The rejected Shepherd became the crucified Savior, and his blood purchased people “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9).

This cuts me two ways. First, I have to admit that in my sin, I’ve treated Jesus cheaply. I’ve counted him as worth less than my comfort, my convenience, my cravings. Second, I rejoice that even so, Jesus gave himself for me. I treated him cheaply; he responded with costly grace. The price tag I hung on him did not stop the price he was willing to pay for me.

The world said, “Slave price.”
Heaven said, “Infinite worth.”
And I say, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain.”

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