Bible Synapse
Why does Matthew credit words from Zechariah to Jeremiah?
Hard question · Prophecy and its fulfilment · raised by 1 of the lists sceptics circulate
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Matthew says the priests’ purchase of the potter’s field with the thirty pieces fulfilled “that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet”.
Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty 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.
The shepherd is paid off with thirty pieces of silver, and the Lord tells him to “cast it unto the potter” in the house of the Lord.
And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. 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.
God tells Jeremiah to buy a potter’s jar and break it in the valley of Hinnom, a place filled with “the blood of innocents”, which will become a burial ground.
Thus saith the Lord, Go and get a potter’s earthen bottle, and take of the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests; And go forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the east gate, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee, And say, Hear ye the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem; Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, the which whosoever heareth, his ears shall tingle. Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents; They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind: Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that this place shall no more be called Tophet, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of slaughter. …
At God’s word Jeremiah buys his cousin’s field at Anathoth and weighs out seventeen shekels of silver.
And Jeremiah said, The word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Behold, Hanameel the son of Shallum thine uncle shall come unto thee, saying, Buy thee my field that is in Anathoth: for the right of redemption is thine to buy it. So Hanameel mine uncle’s son came to me in the court of the prison according to the word of the Lord, and said unto me, Buy my field, I pray thee, that is in Anathoth, which is in the country of Benjamin: for the right of inheritance is thine, and the redemption is thine; buy it for thyself. Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord. And I bought the field of Hanameel my uncle’s son, that was in Anathoth, and weighed him the money, even seventeen shekels of silver.
The objection
Matthew introduces the words about thirty pieces of silver and the potter’s field as “spoken by Jeremy the prophet” (Matthew 27:9). The words most like them are in Zechariah 11:12–13, and Jeremiah says nothing about thirty pieces of silver. Critics say Matthew simply named the wrong prophet.
The answer
Matthew’s quotation is not a copy of Zechariah. It weaves Zechariah and Jeremiah together, and Matthew names the greater and better-known of the two prophets. Mark does the same when he introduces words from Malachi 3:1 and Isaiah 40:3 with “As it is written in Isaiah the prophet” (Mark 1:2, BSB, following the oldest copies; the KJV has ‘in the prophets’).
The thirty pieces of silver and the potter come from Zechariah 11:12–13. The field, the purchase and the burial ground come from Jeremiah. Jeremiah was sent to the potter’s house (Jeremiah 18), then told to buy a potter’s jar and break it in the valley of the son of Hinnom, by the Potsherd Gate. God said that place was filled with “the blood of innocents” and would become a place to bury the dead (Jeremiah 19:1–11), and tradition puts the field of blood in that same valley. Jeremiah also bought a field with silver at God’s command (Jeremiah 32:6–9). Matthew’s wording points to Jeremiah too: in Zechariah the silver is thrown to the potter in the temple, but in Matthew it is given “for the potter’s field”, a purchase, “as the Lord appointed me”. Judas himself had spoken of “innocent blood” (Matthew 27:4). By naming Jeremiah, Matthew sends his readers to the prophet whose warning about innocent blood in the valley of Hinnom was being fulfilled again.
Other answers Christians give
Jeremiah at the head of the prophets
John Lightfoot, followed by John Gill, pointed out that an old Jewish order of the books, recorded in the Talmud (Bava Batra 14b), put Jeremiah first among the latter prophets. On this view Matthew cited the prophets by the name of their first book, as Jesus called the third part of the Scriptures ‘the psalms’ (Luke 24:44). The difficulty is that the same list counts the Twelve, Zechariah among them, as a book of its own.
A copyist’s slip
Albert Barnes thought an early copyist might have misread an abbreviated name. But nearly all copies read ‘Jeremiah’. A few late copies and a note in the margin of a Syriac version read ‘Zechariah’, and some Syriac and Latin copies have no name at all; these look like later attempts to ease the difficulty.
Zechariah 9–14 by Jeremiah
Joseph Mede, in the seventeenth century, argued that Jeremiah wrote the chapters now at the end of Zechariah. Few hold this today.
Still open
Some Christian commentators thought Matthew quoted from memory and attached the wrong name. Charles Ellicott thought this the most natural answer, and Keil and Delitzsch, after weighing the view that Matthew pointed to Jeremiah 18–19 (they report it from Hengstenberg), settled on a slip of memory or a very early copying error. Those who hold Scripture to be without error usually give the combined-quotation explanation above, though some prefer one of the others.
From the classic commentators
it is very plain, that the latter prophets have many things from the former; and so might Zechariah have this originally from Jeremy, which now stands in his prophecyJohn Gill, Exposition of the Bible, on Matthew 27:9 (1746–1763)
Sources
- John Gill, Exposition of the Bible: Matthew 27 (HelloAO)
- Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible: Matthew 27 (1832), at Bible Hub
- Charles Ellicott, Commentary for English Readers: Matthew 27, at Bible Hub
- Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges: Matthew 27, at Bible Hub
- Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament: Zechariah 11 (HelloAO)