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JudasInsight on the Scriptures, Volume 2
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Why did the Jewish religious leaders offer just 30 pieces of silver for the betrayal of Jesus?
Thirty pieces of silver ($66, if shekels) was the price offered. (Mt 26:14, 15) The sum fixed by the religious leaders appears designed to show their contempt of Jesus, viewing him as of little value. According to Exodus 21:32, the price of a slave was 30 shekels. Carrying this forward, for his work as a shepherd of the people, Zechariah was paid “thirty pieces of silver.” Jehovah scorned this as a very meager amount, regarding the wages given to Zechariah as an estimation of how the faithless people viewed God himself. (Zec 11:12, 13) Consequently, in offering just 30 pieces of silver for Jesus, the religious leaders made him out to be of little value. At the same time, though, they were fulfilling Zechariah 11:12, treating Jehovah as of low value by doing this to the representative he had sent to shepherd Israel.
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JudasInsight on the Scriptures, Volume 2
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Also related to his death is the question of who bought the burial field with the 30 pieces of silver. According to Matthew 27:6, 7, the chief priests decided they could not put the money in the sacred treasury so they used it to buy the field. The account in Acts 1:18, 19, speaking about Judas, says: “This very man, therefore, purchased a field with the wages for unrighteousness.” The answer seems to be that the priests purchased the field, but since Judas provided the money, it could be credited to him. Dr. A. Edersheim pointed out: “It was not lawful to take into the Temple-treasury, for the purchase of sacred things, money that had been unlawfully gained. In such cases the Jewish Law provided that the money was to be restored to the donor, and, if he insisted on giving it, that he should be induced to spend it for something for the public weal [well-being]. . . . By a fiction of law the money was still considered to be Judas’, and to have been applied by him in the purchase of the well-known ‘potter’s field.’” (The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, 1906, Vol. II, p. 575) This purchase worked to fulfill the prophecy at Zechariah 11:13.
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