And the LORD said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty [pieces] of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the LORD.
Ver. 13. Cast it unto the potter] q.d. Do they deal with me as with some sordid swineherd? Do they award me less than carters' wages? Throw it away, let the potter take it; and let us see how many tiles he can afford us for it, to repair the roof of the temple. Their undervaluing and despising of me in this sort is not only injurious, but contumelious; it is to turn my glory into shame; to spit in my face; or to use me as homely as Rachel did her father's gods, which she laid among the litter, and sat upon.
A goodly price that I was valued at of them] So he calleth it by an irony, or a holy jeer. Poor Joseph was sold for less; for twenty pieces of silver, Genesis 37:28 "They sold the just one for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes," Amos 2:6. The Hebrews tell us, that of those twenty shekels every one of the ten brethren had two to buy shoes for his feet. The Jews that bought Christ for thirty pieces of silver (this goodly price) of the traitor that sold him, were themselves afterwards (by a just hand of God upon them) bought and sold thirty of them for a penny by the Romans, ad illudendum, saith mine author, for a scorn to their nation. God loves to retaliate, and to set the scales even; men's cruelty in the one, and their reward in the other. If we be at any time underrated by the world (as we are sure to be; for the world knows us not, 1Jn 3:2), what so great matter is it, since Christ himself was no more set by? We must be content to pass to heaven (as he did) as concealed men. It must suffice us that our precious faith shall be found to praise, honour, and glory, at that great fair day, 1 Peter 1:7, when all fardles litle bundles shall be opened, and our best wares exposed to public view.
And cast them to the potter] "I gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me," saith the evangelist, Matthew 27:10, expounding the prophet, and applying the words to Christ, who is hereby also proved to be God. So true is that observation of divines, that the Old Testament is both explained and fulfilled in the New, by a happy harmony.
In the house of the Lord] That thereby he might the more sharply prick the priests; whose care it ought to have been that God should be better prized by the people, and his service better observed.