Ver. 12. הבו שכרי—Give me my price.
From the failure of former commentators, in shewing how this can apply to the betrayal of Christ, when the word שכרי (or ירכש) is rendered, as it should be, wages or reward, instead of price, the Jew seems to have been so confident of victory on this point, that on referring to his exposition which follows, it will appear that he must have written it without having read mine, to which it is any thing but an answer, as I have expounded the passage precisely upon his own mode of rendering. The correctness of this translation was acquiesced in by Dr. Blaney, who admitted the difficulty it involved, and candidly acknowledged his inability to solve it; nor while Christ is considered the speaker, as he and Lowth suppose, does the removal of it appear practicable. But when God himself is understood to be the Shepherd, and Christ, the staff Beauty, it appears no longer insurmountable.
Ver. 13. :ואקח שלשים הכסף ואשליך אתו בית יהוה אל היוצר
And I took the thirty pieces of silver and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord.
The word יוצר (or רצוי), is by the Jew changed into אוצר (or רצוא) the alteration of a letter being all that is required to substitute the treasury, in the room of the potter. But he cannot deny, that the word means potter in the original, and the Christian will find no occasion to alter it, to make sense of the passage. The objection, that the potter could not be at work in the temple, [pg 123] which was urged by the Jew, has been answered in the exposition.
Ver. 17. הוי רעי האליל—Woe to the idol shepherd.
The idol might be rendered, as Mr. Lowth observes, worthless, or of no value, as it is, Job xiii. 4, and so the Jew renders it. Though a shepherd, in the singular number, is here spoken of, yet a succession of such shepherds is clearly to be understood; and it is probable that the chiefs and rulers of Israel are intended here, as well as the false Messiahs who have from time to time arisen, and partially misled the people, being alike false guides, who have contributed to the destruction of the flock. A history of the false Messiahs, amounting to not less than twenty, who have at different times made their appearance; with an account of the numbers and destruction of their infatuated followers, being too long for insertion here, may be found by the reader in Dr. Jortin's Remarks on Eccles. Hist.; presenting a lamentable picture of the blindness and infatuation of this wretched people.