The interpretation timeline

Zech 11:12

How this passage has been read — the sources, oldest to newest.

From the early Church Fathers to now.

Zech 11:12 · Douay-Rheims
“And I said to them: If it be good in your eyes, bring hither my wages: and if not, be quiet. And they weighed for my wages thirty pieces of silver.”
Patristic before A.D. 750
386
A.D.
Cyril of Jerusalem Patristic
A.D. 313–386
“Hear now in regard to thirty pieces of silver: "And I will say to them, 'If it seems good to you, give me my wages, or refuse.' " One recompense is due me for curing the blind and the lame, and I receive another; instead of thanksgiving, dishonor, and instead of worship, insult. Do you see how Scripture foresaw all this? "And they counted out my wages, thirty pieces of silver." O prophetic accuracy! A great and unerring wisdom of the Holy Spirit! For he did not say ten or twenty but thirty, exactly the right amount. Tell also what happened to this payment, O prophet! Does he who received it keep it, or does he give it back? And after its return what becomes of it? The prophet says, "So I took thirty pieces of silver, and I cast them into the house of the Lord, into the foundry." Compare with the prophecy of the Gospel, which says, "Judas repented and flung the pieces of silver into the temple and withdrew."”
Source
411
A.D.
Tyrannius Rufinus Patristic
c. A.D. 345–411
“You observe that he was appraised by the traitor's covetousness at thirty pieces of silver. Of this also the prophet speaks, "And I said to them, If you think good, give me my price, or if not, forbear"; and "presently, I received from them," he says, "thirty pieces of silver, and I cast them into the house of the Lord, into the foundry." Is not this what is written in the Gospels, that Judas, "repenting of what he had done, brought back the money, and threw it down in the temple and departed"? Well did he call it his price, as though blaming and upbraiding. For he had done so many good works among them, he had given sight to the blind, feet to the lame, the power of walking to the palsied, life also to the dead; for all these good works they paid him death as his price, appraised at thirty pieces of silver. It is related also in the Gospels that he was bound. This also the word of prophecy had foretold by Isaiah, saying, "Woe to their soul, who have devised a most evil device against themselves, saying, 'Let us bind the just one, seeing that he is unprofitable to us.' "”
Source
420
A.D.
Jerome Patristic
c. A.D. 347–420
“(Verse 12, 13.) And I said to them: If it is good in your eyes, give me my reward, and if not, stop; and they gave me my reward, thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said to me, Throw them (Vulgate: it) to the potter, a handsome price at which I was appraised by them: and I took the thirty pieces of silver, and threw them into the house of the Lord to the potter. LXX: And I will say to them: If it is good in your sight, give those who determine my reward, or refuse. And they set my wages at thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said to me: Put them in the melting pot, and see if they are proven, as I have been proven for them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and put them in the house of the Lord in the melting pot. To the poor shepherds of the Israelite flock, who keep my commandments, it is the word of the Lord that I spoke, and the truths that I said, he said to them, that is, to the poor shepherds, if it pleases you (for you are men and I created you with free will, to whom I also spoke in the wilderness: If you listen to me, you will eat the good things of the land (Isa. 1)) for this assumption, by which I rejected the whole human race, and chose you as my special flock, and desired to have a small cord, give me my wages, that is, keep my commandments. But if you do not want to give payment, and it is not pleasing in your eyes to be considered in my name, openly refuse, and do what you want. And those indeed responded to Moses: Whatever the Lord says, we will do (Exod. XXIV, 3). But in the end of times, because I chose them from among the nations, and I freed them from the iron furnace of Egypt, they paid my payment with thirty silver coins, giving them to the Jewish traitor for my blood (Matt. XXVI). And he said, as the prophet said, the Lord said to me, or rather, the Savior, whose words are before, that the Father spoke to him, testifying: Cast it to the sculptor: for which in Hebrew is read Joser (), that is, the sculptor, whom we can call the maker and potter. And the meaning is: Cast my price to the sculptor, who is the Creator and maker of all things. And he did not say, put down; but, cast, so that the payment of the Lord could be judged by the judgment of the sculptor and the potter. And ironically, seeing his own worth, that is, the divine majesty, for thirty pieces of silver, and being betrayed for such a cheap price: 'This,' he says, 'is the price at which I am appraised by them; but it should be read more closely with the mockery and derision of the speaker: 'So much did my people, and the poor flock once chosen by me as children, judge me worthy of buying and selling. And I, says the Lord through the prophet, as it had been commanded to me by God, took thirty pieces of silver and did not keep them, but threw them into the house of the Lord to the potter: in the house of the Lord, I made them be given to the priests and Pharisees, the very ones who sold me, confessing: 'I have sinned, betraying innocent blood' (Matthew 27:4). But because they considered it the price of blood, they did not want to return it to the treasury, that is, the treasury; but they bought with it a potter's field as a burial place for strangers. For all of us who were foreigners and strangers to the Law have been redeemed by his precious blood, and we are buried and rest in the house of the potter and the Creator of all. For πλάστῃ and fictore, I have once interpreted as a sculptor, forced by the ambiguity of the word, which signifies both a sculptor and a maker of statues. The Jews, interpreting this passage maliciously, mention thirty pieces of silver, and they mention thirty commandments of the Law, which they are commanded to do in the Law, and again thirty-six others which are prohibited in the Law, and they say that they should return the silver of the Lord's commandments to their own goldsmith and maker: but because they did not want to do this, they were rejected. I wanted to briefly indicate what they think, otherwise I am tired of going through their tedious explanation, so let's move on to the rest.”
Source
Modern · 1953 →

The in-app commentary runs from the Fathers to the early-modern record, then stops — that's where the public-domain sources end, not where the reading does. For the modern reading, follow the sources directly.