“Zechariah 11:12-13 – 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.”
Problem: When Matthew presents the prophetic prediction that related to the death of Judas, he quoted from Jeremiah 32:6–9. However, he also quoted from Zechariah 11:12–13, but he asserts that these quotes are from the prophet Jeremiah. Does the Zephaniah passage actually belong in Jeremiah?
Solution: It is not exactly accurate to say that Matthew quoted exclusively from Zechariah 11 or Jeremiah 32. There are other passages in Jeremiah that refer to the potter’s field (Jer. 18:2; 19:2, 11), and Matthew’s rendering is not an exact quote from any of the passages. Matthew is combining the various elements of these prophecies to make his point. Because Jeremiah is the more prominent prophetic book, Matthew simply mentions Jeremiah’s name as the source of the prophetic message which he is bringing out. Matthew did this earlier (Matt. 5:2) where he cites from two passages (Micah 5:2 and 2 Sam. 5:2). It was a common practice of the day to cite the more popular prophet.
