REJECTION OF THE TRUE SHEPHERD 411
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 " (Jer. xix. 6) ; and then cites the words of Zechariah, as spoken by Jeremiah, in order to make all mistake impossible. St. Matthew had, therefore, a direct purpose in introducing the name of Jeremiah ; it was to warn the Jews against the coming judgments. They fondly hoped that, as the chosen people of God, they were safe. St. Matthew points them to the potter s field, and thus reminds them of the calamities which had already come upon them for past sins, less heinous than that of which the potter s field now testifies. a
I have entered somewhat fully into this explanation because it has commended itself to many devout and scholarly Bible students ; but, at the same time, I must con fess that I myself do not feel at all positive of the connection between our passage in Zechariah and the particular pro phecy in Jeremiah to which reference has been made. The whole rests upon the presupposition (i) that the potter, of whom Jeremiah purchased the pot, had his workshop in the valley of Hinnom, which was regarded with abhorrence as an unclean place; (2) that Zechariah threw the thirty pieces of silver at the spot in that valley where the potter s workshop was, with evident and intentional allusion to Jeremiah s prophecy which the people are assumed to have had in their minds. But, as shown above, it is not at all proven that the potter in Jeremiah had his workshop in the
1 Dr. Alexander McCaul. This seems to be also the view of Dr. Alfred Edersheim. Speaking on " the potter s field," in the passage in Matthew, he says : " The very spot on which Jeremiah had been Divinely directed to prophesy
- against Jerusalem and against Israel, how was it now all fulfilled in the light of
the completed sin and apostasy of the people, as prophetically described by Zechariah ! This Tophet of Jeremiah, now that they had valued and sold at thirty shekels Israel s Messiah-Shepherd truly a Tophet and become a field of blood ! Surely, not an accidental coincidence this, that it should be the place of Jeremy s announcement of judgment : not accidental, but veritably a fulfilment of his prophecy ! And so St. Matthew, targuming this prophecy in form as in its spirit, and in true Jewish manner stringing to it the prophetic description furnished by Zechariah, sets the event before us as the fulfilment of Jeremy s prophecy." Edersheim, Life and 7 imes of Jesus the Messiah, vol. ii. p. 5?6-
