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from the fact that Jeremiah would not have mentioned the gate leading to the valley of Hinnom by name, seeing that it was generally known, and is described elsewhere simply as the gate of the valley, if there had not been something in the name itself bearing upon the subject in hand.1 (Compare Nehemiah ii. 13, 15, with Jer. ii. 23, in the latter of which passages the valley of Hinnom is called the valley Kar' oxyv.) But from the time of Josiah, by whom the valley of Hinnom, at that time the scene of idolatrous abominations of the most fearful description, was polluted by carrion, human bones, and other things of a similar kind, it was regarded by the Jews with disgust and abhorrence as an unclean place; and eventually the opinion was expressed in the Talmud, that the mouth of hell was there." When Zechariah represents the contemptible wages as having been cast into the valley of Hinnom, and mentions the particular spot in the valley, the workshop or field of the potter, we see in each of these a special reference to a prophecy of Jeremiah, with which he supposes his readers to be already acquainted. In the first there is an allusion to Jer. xix. The prophet is represented there as going with several of the elders of the nation and the leading priests to the valley of Hinnom, where he breaks to pieces an empty earthen vessel. The meaning of this symbolical action is described as follows: "because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocents; I will empty the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place, and I will make them fall by the sword of their enemies, and by the hands of those that seek their lives, and their carcases will I give to be meat for the fowl of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth. .

1 Gesenius says, " testacea, an.”

That

figlina sc. officina pottery, in qua fiunt vasa

.1 in ver יוצר חרש is evident from

is not a potsherd, but an earthen vessel, When used by itself it never means used for an earthen vessel: " every 21 (compare xi. 33, xiv. 50, xv. 12, "make them into an

a sherd. In the Pentateuch it is always Cheres, in which thou boilest," Lev. vi.

Num. v. 17); and again Jer. xxxii. 14, earthen vessel," Prov. xxvi. 33.

2 Lightfoot says (centur. chorograph. Matth. praem. opp. t. ii. p. 200), "in the time of the second temple, when the things which had formerly brought the place into such ill repute, had all vanished, there still remained so much that was disgusting and repulsive, that the name suggested the thought of hell as much as it had done before. It was the common cesspool of the whole city, in which every kind of filth was collected."

Thus will I break this people and this city as one breaketh the potter's vessel, which cannot be healed any more, and they shall bury in Tophet, because there is no more room. Thus will I do with this place and to the inhabitants thereof, and make this city like Tophet. And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, shall be defiled as the place of Tophet." Zechariah describes the contemptible wages as having been thrown into the valley of Ben Hinnom or Tophet, partly because this was an unclean place, but more particularly for the purpose of renewing the prophecy of Jeremiah, and to show that a second fulfilment of this prophecy would take place, inasmuch as the justice of God, which dictated the threat and its first fulfilment, would be again provoked and even in a still more fearful manner. The sign of the base ingratitude of the Jewish nation, the corpus delicti, is carried to the very same spot, from which their former abominations cried to God and called down his vengeance. A new pledge, as it were, is deposited there, which the nation will be obliged to redeem at the proper time. The selection of the potter's ground, in particular, is made with reference to chap. xviii. The prophet is represented there, as paying a visit to the potter's house at the command of the Lord, just at the time when the potter was at work. the vessel, that he made of clay, was marred in his hands; then he made another vessel out of the clay as it seemed good to him." The meaning of the symbol is thus described: "O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in my hand. Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you; return ye now every one from his evil way, and amend your ways and doings." This truth, that the Lord could and would cast off his rebellious people, without acknowledging any claim on their part, if they did not repent in due time, is here made prominent once more by Zechariah, when he describes the contemptible wages as being brought to the spot, where the truth was first uttered by Jeremiah, and which was quite as well adapted to set forth the truth in symbol in the time of Zechariah, seeing that the potter had opened his workshop there again. The circumstances also were such as to recall this prophecy of Jeremiah in all its force; for the former apostasy, which had directly occasioned it, was

"And

but slight in comparison with this, their base ingratitude towards the Lord, who had taken charge of the flock himself. The explanation we have given, sustains and completes the surmises of Grotius. The objection, that after we expect to

find a thing and not a person, does not apply; for "to the potter" is just the same as to the potter's house or potter's ground. Casting to the potter is used here in precisely the same sense as casting to the moles and bats, viz., to their place of resort, in Is. ii. 20. Schmieder's objection that it is impossible, or rather inconceivable, that a potter should have either his house or his workshop in an unclean spot, only shows that the passage in Jeremiah has been overlooked, where it is expressly stated that the potter's workshop was in the valley of Hinnom. The valley was theologically unclean, that is, unsuitable for the performance of acts of worship (2 Kings xxiii. 10), but in a civil point of view it was not so. So much was not conceded to theology, even in the immediate vicinity of the capital. If the valley of Hinnom was used as a burying-ground (see Krafft, Topographie Jerus. p. 190 sqq.), the potter might also settle there, if it contained the proper earth for his purpose. Now Krafft (p. 193) has shown that this kind of earth is really to be found there: "then follows the Aceldama or field of blood, as it is called in tradition, with a few graves or natural grottoes and quarries in the corner. The testimony of tradition as to the exact site is confirmed by the fact, that a little higher up there is a considerable bed of white earth or pipe-clay, where I frequently saw people employed in digging."-The most widely-adopted of the interpretations which differ from our own, is "to the treasure," or" to the treasurer," and appeal is made to the authority of the Syriac, where the word is translated treasury. Of the advocates of this exposition, some maintain, with Kimchi, that synonymous with i; others, with Jonathan, that means treasurer; and others again, for example Jahn and Hitzig, suggest the reading, which they regard as synonymous with

אוֹצָר

יוצר

is

But this explanation could hardly have been defended by any one, who was acquainted with the passages already quoted from Jeremiah. For no one could place these passages side by side with the verse before us, without surmising at once that

there was a connexion between them, though he might not be able to determine its precise nature, especially if he observed, how nearly every verse in the chapter is related in some way to Jeremiah, and that there are traces in other parts of the chapter, of the use which has been made of Jer. xviii. and xix. (compare ver. 9 with Jer. xviii. 21 and xix. 9). It does not even give a good sense, or rather it gives no sense at all. For how could the temple-treasures be introduced in this connexion? It would have done honour to the thirty pieces of silver to place them among these. Dishonourable gains were not allowed to be brought into the treasury of the temple (Deut. xxiii. 18; Matt. xxvii. 6). Moreover the root is never used interchangeably with. There are more than forty other passages, in which this word Jozer occurs, and it always means an imagemaker or potter. It is used with peculiar frequency in this sense in Jer. xviii. and xix., and also in Zechariah xii. 1.—Again the expression throw it does not harmonise with this rendering. It evidently denotes a contemptuous action, and there would have been nothing contemptuous in depositing the money in the treasury of the temple. What is thrown away in disgust cannot be placed among the temple-treasures. Maurer's rendering, " mittitur in templum pecunia," is simply a proof of inability to explain the words as they stand in the text. In this case it would have been better to leave the explanation in the hands of the Jews! In Homfann's opinion the meaning of the passage is, "he regards the money as worth no more than the clay, that is used by the potter." In this case the potter would be equivalent to a potter. But Jeremiah, on the one hand, and Matthew on the other, both point to one potter in particular. And what a singular mode of expression it would be, if " to the potter" meant "to the clay."-The glory of the price, which I have been valued at by them: in other words "the glorious price (ironically, egregium scilicet pretium) at which they have estimated my person and my work." (Compare Deut. xxxii. 6, "do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise").—And I threw it, the amount (or it, the price), into the house of the Lord, that it might be carried thence to the potter. There can be no doubt in this case, that the money could not possibly be taken to the temple and the potter at the same time. For the potter did not work in the

temple, nor even in the city, but, as we have already seen, in the valley of Hinnom. From the very nature of the case, there cannot have been any potter in the house of the Lord. We must suppose, therefore, that it was taken first of all to the temple and then to the potter; and this is very clearly indicated by the use of before "away to the potter," in other words, "to be carried thence to the potter." But the question arises here, why was the money taken first of all to the temple, when it was ultimately to be left on the potter's ground? Evidently, because the temple was the place, where the people appeared before the Lord. There, therefore, the nation was to be upbraided with its shameful ingratitude, by the return of the contemptible wages. The money was then to be carried away to the potter, because dishonourable money could not remain in the temple, Deut. xxiii. 19. Talm. tract. Sanhedrin f. 112.

We have hitherto been seeking to solve the difficulties connected with vers. 13 and 14, altogether apart from the fulfilment. And the following is the explanation obtained. The Lord has once more undertaken the office of shepherd over the flock, which is devoted to the slaughter, the unhappy nation of Israel; and when he lays the office down again, on account of its determined unbelief, he demands his wages. They give him thirty pieces of silver. He is not content with such miserable pay, and throws it down in the temple. It is carried thence, as being unclean, and taken to the potter's ground, where it is left as a pledge of divine vengeance, until the day, when judgment falls upon the nation. The meaning of this symbolical representation we found to be, that after the Lord had given up his people on account of their hardness of heart, their obduracy would be displayed once more in some striking act of ingratitude towards him, and by this they would render themselves completely ripe for judgment.

The agreement between the prophecy and its fulfilment is so striking in this instance, that it would force itself at once upon us, even if no reference had been made to it in the New Testament itself. What else could the last and most fearful mani festation of ingratitude towards the good shepherd, predicted

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