And gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me.
And gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me. Never was a complicated prophecy, otherwise hopelessly dark, more marvelously fulfilled. Various conjectures have been formed to account for Matthew's ascribing to Jeremiah a prophecy found in the book of Zechariah. But since with this book he was plainly familiar, having quoted one of its most remarkable prophecies of Christ but a few chapters before (Matthew 21:4-5), the question is one more of critical interest than real importance. Perhaps the true explanation is the following, from Lightfoot:-`Jeremiah of old had the first place among the prophets, and hereby he comes to be mentioned above all the rest in Matthew 16:14; because he stood first in the volume of the prophets (as he proves from the learned David Kimchi) 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 (Luke 24:44), "All things must be fulfilled which are written of me in the Law, and the Prophets, and the Psalms," or the Book of Hagiographa, in which the Psalms were placed first.'
Remarks:
(1) The mastery acquired by the passions is, probably in every case, gradual. In the case of Judas-the most appalling on record-it must have been very gradual; otherwise it is incredible that he should have been such a constant and promising follower of our Lord as to be admitted by Him into the number of the Twelve, and that he should not only have been allowed to remain within that sacred circle to the last, but have remained undiscovered in his true character to the Eleven until after he had sold his Master, and even within an hour of his consummated treason. What a lesson does this read to the self-confident, to resist the beginnings of sinful indulgence!
(2) The love of money, when it becomes the ruling passion, blinds-as does every other passion-the mind of its victim, which is only to be opened by some unexpected and disappointing event.
(3) The true character of repentance is determined neither by its sincerity nor by its bitterness, but by the views under which it is done. Judas and Peter repented, it should seem, with equal sincerity and equal pungency, of what they had done. But the one "went and hanged himself;" the other "went out and wept bitterly." Whence this difference! The one, under the sense of his guilt, had nothing to fall back upon; and deeming pardon for such a wretch utterly hopeless, and unable to live without it, he hasted to terminate with his own hand a life of insupportable misery. The other, having done a deed which might well have made him incapable of ever again looking his Lord in the face, nevertheless turned toward Him his guilty eyes, when, lo! the Eye of his wounded Lord, glancing from the hall of judgment full down upon himself, with a grief and a tenderness that told their own tale, shot right into his heart, and brought from it a flood of penitential tears! In the one case we have natural principles working themselves out to deadly effect; in the other, we see grace In the one case we have natural principles working themselves out to deadly effect; in the other, we see grace working repentance unto salvation, not to be repented of.
(4) What a vivid illustration have we here of the reality of supernatural illumination and the divine truth of the Scriptures, as also of the consistency of the divine arrangements with the liberty of the human will in executing them! Here we have a prophet, five centuries before the birth of Christ, personating Messiah, in bidding the Jewish authorities give him his price, if they thought good, and if not, to forbear; whereupon they weigh him for his price the exact sum agreed upon between Judas and the chief priests for the sale of his Lord-thirty pieces of silver. Then, the Lord bids him cast this to the potter; adding, with sublime satire, "A goodly price that I was prized at of them!" Whereupon he takes the 'thirty pieces of silver, and casts them to the potter in the house of the Lord' (Zechariah 11:12-13). Now, each of these acts was so unessential to the main business, that they might have been quite different from what they were, without in the least affecting it. Our Lord might have been identified and apprehended without being betrayed by one of His apostles; because the plan was first suggested to the authorities by Judas offering, for a consideration, to do it. And when agreed to, the sum offered and accepted might have been more or less than that actually agreed on. But so it was, that of their own accord they bargained with Judas for precisely the predicted thirty pieces of silver. Nor was this all. For, as the consciences of those holy hypocrites would have been hurt by putting the price of blood into the treasury, and therefore it must be put to some pious use, they resolve to buy with it "the potter's field" as a burial-ground for strangers-thus again unconsciously, and with marvelous minuteness, fulfilling a prediction five centuries old, and so setting a double seal on the Messiahship of Jesus!