Zechariah 11:12-13

¹² And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.
¹³ And the Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord.

There are literally hundreds of prophecies that Jesus fulfilled throughout His life. I would make a quick comment here that there hasn't been anyone else in the history of time that this has happened with. Jesus fulfilled these prophecies hundreds of years later after they were spoken. We live in a technological world where almost anything is possible. However, if you wanted to write even 100 characteristics down that you would love to see in a future ancestor, it would still be impossible for those characteristics to come to fruition. Not even half of that hundred and I would say that not even one of those things would come to fruition.

Not just one, but hundreds of prophecies were fulfilled by our Lord Jesus Christ. There are several things that are amazing about Jesus fulfilling these prophecies. First, is that it was impossible to store these things and preserve them as we can today to pass down to others. The second amazing thing about these prophecies are that they not only describe Jesus' characteristics, but they describe His life which encompass His birth (how He was born and where He was born), His life, ministry, and His death.

Zechariah 11:12-13 describe what is known as the betrayal of Jesus Christ. The whole text of Zechariah 11 has to deal with prophecy of our Lord. We come to where Zechariah requests his pay to continue service. He did this not on his own, but by what the Lord told him to do.

Those that counted out the money counted 30 shekels of silver. The money paid was the price of a slave at that time (Ex. 21:32). This wasn't the price of good service and it was an undervalue to be paid this much. However, it was as God planned to show that this figure would be seen in the future. Indeed, it was shown again when Judas betrayed our Lord. The 30 shekels of silver were an undervalue of Zachariah's work and again it was an undervalue of our Lord.

In verse 13 the Lord told Zechariah to cast it unto the potter. A potter may have worked in the House of the Lord at the time. But, this again is a demonstration of the potter field mentioned in Matt. 27:9-10. Judas' conscience got the best of him and he felt it would be better to give the 30 pieces of silver back, but it was too late. After Judas hung himself, he was buried in the potter's field.

The 30 pieces of silver is the money that was given to betray the Lord. It was an undervalue especially when Judas had spent years with Jesus and should have known that our Lord's purpose wasn't what Judas had in mind. Jesus' purpose was priceless. It was to save our souls from an eternity in hell.

By throwing the 30 pieces of silver to the potters is a striking resemblance of throwing 30 pieces of silver into a fund for the burial of someone who was a stranger (Matt. 27:7). In a way Judas was a stranger to all of his associates, the other apostles. When Jesus told them that someone would betray Him they thought it was impossible and that none of them could betray our Lord. But, he was in no way a stranger to our Lord. He knew who Judas was and what his purpose would be. 

The ultimate purpose for all of this was that ALL can be saved. The prophecies and the events that led to Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection was all part of a plan by our God. Our salvation wouldn't be possible without any of these events. That is how much God loves you and desires to have a relationship with you.