484

Fields bought for Silver.

may be observed that it was in the suburbs of Jerusalem or in the land of Benjamin, which extended to the precincts of the holy city, that the potter's field was situated.

The resemblance between the Gospel narrative and the corresponding passage in the Book of Jeremiah (whether the Hebrew original or the Septuagint version be considered) is close and obvious:

Verse 25. καὶ σὺ λέγεις πρὸς μὲ, Κτῆσαι σεαυτῷ τὸν ἀγρὸν ἀργυρίου. 44. καὶ κτήσονται ἀγροὺς ἐν ἀργυρίῳ.

MATTHEW 27. 6-7. οἱ δὲ ἀρχιερεῖς λαβόντες τὰ ἀργύρια . . . ἠγόρασαν ἐξ αὐτῶν τὸν ἀγρὸν τοῦ κεραμέως εἰς ταφὴν τοῖς ξένοις.

In the Hebrew, as in the Greek, the they is impersonal, being expressed, not by a separate pronoun, but merely in the person of the verb. And for the simple imperfect in Jeremiah 32. 44, where the futurity of the purchase is indicated, the aorist, preceded by the conjunction kaì, and thus corresponding to p, is used in the Gospel narrative, to describe the purchase as a transaction then past--καὶ ἔλαβον—καὶ ἔδωκαν.

Each section of the quotation contained in Matthew 27. 9-10 has thus its exact counterpart in Jeremiah 32. And the way in which silver is mentioned in both counterparts (verses 25 and 44) is specially noteworthy. God directed the prophet, not only to buy a field, but to buy a field with or for silver. And what was prophesied about those who should do what he had been directed to do was, not merely that they should buy fields, but that they should buy fields for silver, D:

The essential point.

485

Verse 25. And thou O Lord Jehovah hast said unto me, Buy thee the field for silver.

44. They shall buy fields for silver Benjamin, and in the suburbs of Jerusalem.

in the land of

In neither verse, however, is any amount of silver prescribed-the quality not the quantity of the material being the essential point in the narrative. While indeed, as mentioned in the ninth verse, the silver which Jeremiah weighed out to his cousin amounted to seventeen shekels, this detail is entirely subordinate, and does not belong to that part of Jeremiah's words which is quoted in the New Testament. Still further, though the amount paid by the prophet is thus incidentally mentioned as an actual fact past and accomplished, no amount is mentioned as payable or to be paid by other purchasers. And indeed no amount could have been mentioned consistently with the scope of the prophecy, seeing that different fields bought and sold at different times might bring different prices. What is pre- \ dicted is that they shall BUY FIELDS FOR SILVER, so that while, in point of fact, the chief priests paid τριάκοντα ἀργύρια for the potter's feld, and while that which was spoken through Feremiah the prophet was thus fulfilled on the payment of thirty pieces of silver, it would have been equally fulfilled had half or double of that amount been given.

The fact that the field purchased by the high priests was a potter's field is similarly incidental. What was predicted was that fields (m) should be bought for silver. Hence the prophecy was

486

An Earthen Vessel.

fulfilled to the very letter in the purchase of a field which happened to be or to have been owned or occupied by a κeрaμeús. But it would have been equally fulfilled had the owner or occupant been a gardener, or a merchant, or a shepherd, or a fuller, as in 2 Kings 18. 17 and Isaiah 7. 3; 36. 2.

It is perhaps not undeserving of special notice, however, in connection with even this incidental point, that the idea of a potter is not alien to the thirty-second chapter of Jeremiah, as it certainly is to the whole Book of Zechariah. The Lord, besides telling Jeremiah to buy the field for silver, directed him (in verse 14) to put the writings of the purchase in an earthen vessel, w, that they might continue many days. In two other passages likewise Jeremiah speaks of earthenware ; and in each of them he mentions it in immediate connection with the fashioner, who as already observed in page 460, must in each of these two cases have been a potter.

LAM. 4. 2. The precious sons of Zion comparable to pure gold -how are they accounted as earthen bottles, the work of the

! יוצר hands of a

JER. 19. 1. Thus saith Jehovah, Go and buy " papa. Now as the potter's earthen cruse played an important part in the transactions and symbolism of the nineteenth chapter of Jeremiah, when the prophet, by divine appointment, broke the cruse before the eyes of the men who accompanied him to the valley of the son of Hinnom, so, in like manner, the position occupied by the n in the transactions of the thirty-second chapter was

The Potter's Field.

487

so prominent, that the evangelist, when inserting TоÛ Keρaμéws in Matthew 27. 10, may possibly have had in view the n of Jeremiah 32. 14. Just as the drawn-off shoe gave a name to the house mentioned in Deuteronomy 25. 10 (And the

,(בית חלוץ הנעל name thereof shall be called in Israel

so then in which the Lord told the prophet Jeremiah to deposit the records of the purchase may have fixed the name potter's field on the land bought by Jeremiah, and may thus have enhanced, in a peculiarly striking manner, the coincidence between the purchase made by him, and the similar purchase made long afterwards by the chief priests, when they bought the potter's field for silver, so fulfilling 'that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet.'

The manner in which, in Matthew 27. 9-10, the evangelist quotes two brief clauses from the detailed narrative in Jeremiah 32, is analogous to the manner in which the apostle Paul quotes from the Book of Genesis in the fourth chapter of his Epistle to the Churches of Galatia—

4. 21-22. Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law-Do ye not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondmaid and one by the free woman.

The two clauses of this quotation do not occur together anywhere in the Pentateuch; but they are taken from the series of historic facts recorded in Genesis 16 and 21, similarly as the twofold quotation in Matthew 27. 9-10 is taken from the series recorded in Jeremiah 32.

488

Parenthetical Clauses.

The Price of him that was priced.

The parenthetical clause inserted by the evangelist in the middle of that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet, and reserved in page 481 for subsequent inquiry, must now be specially considered.

Here and there throughout the Scriptures (as, for instance, in 1 Chronicles 5. 1-2; John 11. 2), clauses purely incidental or parenthetical have been inserted for explanation, or definition, or illustration—yet in such a manner as neither to produce confusion nor to preclude textual accuracy. In some cases the relation of the clauses to one another seems to be more or less

problematical. Thus, for instance, it might be asked whether in John 4. 9 the words, 'for Jews have no dealings with Samaritans,' form part of what the woman of Samaria said to Jesus, or were inserted as explanatory, by the evangelist. So likewise, a similar question might be asked with reference to the words αὕτη ἐστὶν ἔρημος in Acts 8. 26, or the statement about the purchase of the field of blood in Acts 1. 18-19. Yet the ascertaining of the exact connection between such clauses and their context may sometimes be of much importance towards a clear understanding of the passages examined. Of extraneous clauses appended to or embedded in New Testament quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures, there is a notable instance in Romans 10. 5-8: