The Field of Blood
“One of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests, and said … What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver” (Matthew 26:14, 15).
The 30 pieces of silver given to Judas have some interesting history connected with it.
First, according to Exodus 21:32, thirty pieces of silver was the value of a slave. The Jewish priests knew this, so by choosing 30 pieces of silver as the betrayal price they were saying that Jesus was worth no more than a common slave. Had they decided on a higher price they would have indirectly been admitting that Jesus had some real value. Thus even the amount of money that they chose to give Judas was a slap in the face to Jesus.
THE PROPHECY FROM “JEREMIAH”
But there is another interesting connection to the 30 pieces of silver. Remember what was done with this money. After seeing that Jesus was going to be put to death, Judas brought the money back to the chief priests and elders, admitting that he had betrayed an innocent man. He threw it down in the Temple and went and hanged himself.
The chief priests then took the money and said that because it was “blood money” they could not put it into the temple treasury. Though they were careful not to desecrate the temple treasury, they were not so careful when desecrating their own service to God by using consecrated funds to pay for the betrayal of Jesus. They would also violate Jewish law in the way they treated Jesus. These actions did not bother them. But it bothered them to put blood money in the treasury.
So they bought a field, called the “potter’s field.” Matthew 27:8 says, “wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day.”
Then Matthew adds this: “Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, and they took the 30 pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value; and gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord appointed me.”
If we go back to Jeremiah we do not find this prophecy there. However, we find it in Zechariah chapter 11. There are at least two possible reasons why Matthew seems to be quoting the wrong prophet. Some manuscripts omit the name Jeremiah from the Matthew account and simply say “the prophet.” That was a common way for Matthew to relate back to an Old Testament prophecy.
A second explanation is given by Adam Clarke. “It was an ancient custom among the Jews … to divide the Old Testament into three parts: the first beginning with the law was called The Law; the second beginning with the Psalms was called the Psalms; the third beginning with the prophet in question was called Jeremiah: thus, then, the writings of Zechariah and the other prophets being included in that division that began with Jeremiah, all quotations from it would go under the name of this prophet.” So here are two plausible explanations why Matthew says that the prophecy found in the book of Zechariah is from Jeremiah.
THE POTTER’S FIELD
But let us now look at the Zechariah prophecy itself. In the context of Zechariah chapter 11, it appears to be a prophecy about the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of Babylon. When Matthew told us that purchasing the potter’s field was the fulfillment of this prophecy, he was indicating that the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of ancient Babylon was a picture of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, after the first advent.
Thirty Pieces of Silver
With the context of Zechariah in mind, let us read Zechariah 11:12,13 (NAS). Verse 12 begins with the prophet Zechariah speaking to the leaders of Jerusalem. Notice the parallels to Jesus here. “And I said unto them, If it is good in your sight, give me my wages; but if not, never mind! So they weighed out 30 shekels of silver as my wages. Then the Lord said to me, Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them. So I took the 30 shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the Lord.”
In this prophecy Zechariah pictures our Lord. He is here symbolically asking the leaders of Israel to pay him his wages, in other words to express how much they thought he was worth. They were the ones who determined that he was worth 30 pieces of silver.
Notice God’s sarcastic reaction to this valuation. He calls it “the magnificent price at which I was valued by them.” In Zechariah’s time their rejection of God’s prophet was a rejection of God, just as Israel’s rejection of Jesus was also a rejection of God. Thirty pieces of silver was not a magnificent sum. It was the value of a slave. It was a paltry valuation of a prophet of God, and even more so of our Lord Jesus.
So God told Zechariah to throw it to the potter. Their valuation was an insult and not worth keeping. The obvious fulfillment of that prophecy was when even Judas could not keep the money. Though he was a thief, his guild ridden conscience saw the terrible injustice of this transaction and he then cast the money to the floor of the temple.
The chief priests called it “blood money” and bought the potter’s field with it. It is interesting that the potter’s field was a graveyard for strangers, including Gentiles. The paltry value these men placed on Jesus’ life was in reality so valuable that someday they would all be emptied. All the painful memories, all the emptiness and broken hearts that death has caused, will be fixed because of the priceless value of Jesus’ sacrifice!
Yes, it was blood money. To them it was “murder money.” But to God’s justice it was the merit that was able to pay the ransom for our race, a life for a life.
When ancient Israel rejected the prophets they were eventually punished by God when He sent Assyria and Babylon to take them captive. Israel at the first advent rejected the greatest prophet, the son of God, and was likewise punished when God sent the Romans to make their house desolate.
— Br. Tom Ruggirello