And I said, &c.— Afterwards I said unto them, if this pleaseth you, give me my hire; if not, forbear: so, &c. Zechariah 11:13. And the Lord said unto me, cast it to the potter, [namely,] this very goodly valuation which they made of me. The Messiah speaks this to the chief-priests and rulers of the Jews, from whom he demands his hire, or, faith in his Gospel; for no other hire can be here understood. We have seen above, that Zechariah fed not the flock, and that the person of the Messiah is here exhibited, to whom alone it appertains to hold the staff of delight, and gentleness, and to make a covenant with the nations, that they should not destroy the Jewish people. There the Messiah only speaks, who expected no other hire or reward from the Jews than faith with all its blessed consequences. שׂכרי sekari, in the last clause, is more properly rendered price than hire, because the prophet prophesies ambiguously, and introduces the Messiah complaining to the following purpose: "I demanded my hire or reward from them: but they, so far from thinking to reward me, even weighed out the price or purchase-money for my life," So St. Matthew understood the place, who by his quotation teaches us; first, that שׂכרי sekari, here is not to be understood, as in the former part of the verse, for the reward or hire of a shepherd, but for the very price of the shepherd's life given to the traitor Judas: Secondly, that these words, A good price at which I was valued, in like manner denote the valuation, not of the shepherd's labour, but of his person [at which I was valued]; which estimation he calls goodly, in scorn, because it was a shameful thing for the murderers of the shepherd, however wicked, to purchase the facility of murdering him at so low a rate. The latter words could have no ambiguity in them: for, as nobody had seen Zechariah feed a flock, or demand his hire from any one, they could not doubt but that the prophet, when he said, I took and cast the thirty pieces of silver, &c. foretold that it should hereafter happen that thirty pieces of silver, &c. should be cast into the temple to or for the potter; though the other circumstances of this enigmatical prophesy could scarcely be explained or understood before the event itself. Such is Houbigant's explanation of this passage. Dr. Sharpe observes upon it, that after the dissolution of the covenant, mentioned Zechariah 11:10-11 between the Lord and the Jews, in consequence of their pride and other corruptions, they were delivered up to their enemies; notwithstanding the glorious promises made them on their return, and which they had forfeited by breaking the covenant first on their part. On this occasion, the fate even of the shepherd himself is related, as it happened not long after the time of these troubles, which extended to the reign of Herod. And I said unto them:—The prophet said unto them, the rulers of the people,—relating here what really happened, when one of the disciples of Jesus demanded the price of the Lord:—So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver; and the Lord said, &c. Zechariah 11:13. It is the Messiah, the governor, the good Shepherd, whom the Jews had rejected, and not the prophet Zechariah, who, as one dismissed, demands the lower price given to shepherds. This has manifestly a reference to what happened when the Messiah appeared in the flesh, and was again rejected by the Jews. The only difference in this account given by Zechariah is, that the prophet exhibits what was done by a third person, without introducing him into the relation. But this difference is such, as will not hinder a judicious and impartial man from believing the prophet, or the Word, to have had the future treatment of the same shepherd in view. And hence I take leave to remark, that it is a necessary key to the interpretation of the scriptures of the new covenant, that many things applied to our Lord in those writings are his own words, delivered under the character of the LORD, the Logos or Word; and therefore not to be considered merely as ACCOMODATIONS of phrases taken from the old scriptures, and applied to different purposes and persons in the new. See Dr. Sharpe's Second Argument, and Matthew 27.
The potter— It is not likely that the potter was at work within the sacred precincts of the temple, as has been conjectured; because the potter's field, the place where his business was carried on, was, as we are told, Matthew 27:7 afterwards bought to bury strangers in. But who can suppose that the Jews would have suffered such a defilement of the holy place? It must therefore have been a field adjacent to, but without the walls, which, the potters having by digging out the earth for their manufacture rendered it useless for any other purpose, was bought for a trifling sum, and appropriated as before mentioned.