Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 27:9

"Then was fulfilled that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was priced, whom [certain] of the children of Israel did price;" — Matthew 27:9 (ASV)

Then was fulfilled — Three questions of varying difficulty arise regarding this quotation:

1. The words cited are found in our present Old Testament, not in Jeremiah, but in Zechariah 11:13, and there is no trace that they ever occupied any other place in the Hebrew Canon. How can this discrepancy be explained?
   1. Should we assume an early error in transcription? Against this is the fact that manuscripts and versions—with one or two exceptions where the correction is obviously later—attribute the quote to Jeremiah, not Zechariah.
   2. Could we rely on the Jewish notion that the spirit of Jeremiah had passed into Zechariah? Or that Jeremiah, having at one time stood first in the Jewish order of the Prophets, was used to represent the whole collection, just as David was for the entire Book of Psalms? This is possible, but it is highly improbable that the Gospel writer would have deliberately presented his quotation in a way certain to cause confusion.
   3. Is it possible that the writer quoted from memory? Recalling the two prominent chapters (18 and 19) where Jeremiah spoke of the potter and his work, he may have been led to think that this passage also belonged to the same group of prophecies. I must confess that this last hypothesis seems to me the most natural and straightforward. The only difficulty is one created by an arbitrary assumption about the necessity of literal accuracy in an inspired writing.
2. The words given by Saint Matthew do not match either the Greek version of Zechariah 11:13 or the original Hebrew. Instead, they appear to be a free quotation from memory, adapted to the events. This, as far as it goes, supports the last hypothesis.
3. It is hardly necessary to dwell on the fact that the words as they stand in Zechariah have a sufficient historical meaning entirely independent of Saint Matthew’s application of them. This, as we have seen repeatedly (Matthew 1:23; Matthew 2:15–18; Matthew 4:15; Matthew 8:17; Matthew 12:18), was entirely consistent with the Evangelist’s way of handling prophecy. It was enough for him that the ancient words fit the events, without asking, as we do, whether they were originally intended to point to them. The combination in one verse, as he remembered it, of the thirty pieces of silver and the potter’s field was a coincidence he could not pass over.