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valley of Hinnom, 1 and, as far as the words in Zechariah are concerned, the obvious sense of the words is that the money was thrown to the potter " in the house of Jehovah " or Temple.
Failing any other satisfactory explanation, we shall have to assume that the name of Jeremiah has crept into the passage in Matthew by error in one of the following ways : By a simple slip of memory, according to Augustine, Luther, Beza, Koehler, Keil, and almost all writers of the modern school ; or secondly, and to my mind much more probable, as a very old copyist s error more ancient than the date of any of the MSS which have come down to us. 2
The insult to the Shepherd of their offering Him for His hire nothing more than the price of a dead slave is fol lowed by the completion of the severance of the relations which existed between the Shepherd and flock, and the final giving over of the sheep to their own evil devices : " And I cut asunder Mine other (or second } staff, even Bands (or Binders ), to destroy the brotherhood between Judah and between Israeli
The retention by the Shepherd of this second staff for some time after the first had already been broken, is probably meant to indicate His reluctance to give up the flock which had been so dear to Him, and His waiting to the very end to be gracious to them if they had but turned from their evil ways. His very request for His "wages," or " hire," after the first staff was broken, was really, if they
1 It is clear, however, from Matt, xxvii. etc., that in our Lord s time there was a spot in that valley which was known as "the potter s field," probably because of the accumulation of potsherds and debris from potteries, or, as some suppose, because it furnished a sort of clay suitable for potters ware.
2 In connection with this two suggestions have been made, either of which is quite probable, (a) That in the original MS the name Zax^plov (Zechariah) stood in abbreviated form as Zpiov, which a very early copyist mistook for Ipiov (the abbreviation for Iepe/j.aiov Jeremiah), and thus the error was afterwards perpetuated ; (3) that in the original text of the evangelist there was no name at all, but simply "as was spoken by the prophet" 5t& rov -irpo^Tov a formula which Matthew uses again and again (see i. 22, ii. 5-15, xiii. 35, etc.) ; and that the early copyist made a double error of inserting a name which was not in the original, and that a wrong one.
