Matthew 27:9,10 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

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 Exodus 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 Chapter s 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 Luke 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 Zechariah 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.