THIRTY
COINS!
Ninth
of twelve in Lamb of God Parallel Bible Series
Zechariah
11:13, Matthew 26:14-15
Zechariah
11:12: “I told them, ‘If you think it
best, give me my pay; but if not, keep it.’
So they paid me thirty pieces of silver.’”
Matthew
26:14-15: “Then one of the Twelve—the one called Judas Iscariot—went to the
chief priests and asked, ‘What are you willing to give me if I hand Him [Jesus]
over to you?’ So they counted out for
him thirty silver coins.”
Thirty coins! Zechariah 11:13 shows that insults God: “And the Lord said to me, ‘Throw it to the
potter’—the handsome price at which they priced Me! So I took the thirty pieces of silver and
threw them into the house of the Lord to the potter.” One can “feel” the Lord’s sarcasm [SAR-kas-m]
is mocking distain. Thirty coins for God
is mockery!
God is angry in Zechariah 11:7: God had two staffs. One He named Favor. The other He called Union. In verse ten, God broke the staff called Favor. That ruined the covenant promise with all the
nations.
Then they paid God the thirty silver
coins.
That’s when God broke the staff named
Union. That divided the brotherhood of
Judah and Israel (Zechariah 11:14), dissolving God’s covenant nation in half! This began the hostility between the two Hebrew
kingdoms: Judah in the south, retaining Jerusalem as its capital, and Israel in
the north, who chose Samaria as its capital.
They remained divided for over two hundred years.
Then Judeans wanted a king. In the Old Testament book of Judges, God was
their king. Their prophet Samuel advised
them that wanting an earthly king is disobedient to their God. They’d pay dearly if they insisted on getting
an earthly king. The two Old Testament
books of Kings proved Samuel’s warning to be true.
Zechariah 11:15-17 prophesizes worthless
shepherds who don’t care for the people. God allowed His people to have their earthly king. Maybe the thirty coins weren’t even close to the
value of having God as their king!
What do you think?
Take Home Nugget
Complete
the lesson linked below to understand what happened to Judas after he betrayed his
friend, Jesus. He felt awful, and returned
the thirty coins to the temple. But the
chief priests and elders couldn’t put it to the treasury because it’s now “blood
money”. “So they decided to use the
money to buy the potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners.” (Matthew 27:7). We see “potter” in both the Old and New
Testament passages.
Blood money is exactly what it
sounds. Blood money is reward for
someone who turns someone else into authorities.
Money isn’t worthy of love. Love cannot be bought.
J.D.
Griffith
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