Why Thirty Pieces of Silver?

“Then one of the Twelve— the one called Judas Iscariot— went to the chief priests and asked, "What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?" So they counted out for him thirty silver coins. From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over.” Matthew 26:14-16

We do not know what motives Judas had in betraying Jesus. We know that he was greedy and he had been pilfering money from the common purse. He had recently become upset with Jesus for not rebuking the woman when she poured expensive perfume over the feet of Jesus. Whatever his motives were he was compelled to betray Jesus for thirty silver coins, the price of a common slave.

Zechariah had prophesied four hundred years before that one close to Jesus would betray Him for thirty pieces of silver. “I told them, ‘If you think it best, give me my pay; but if not, keep it.’ So they paid me thirty pieces of silver.” Zechariah 11:12 For the price of a common slave one of those closest to Jesus betrayed Him and handed Him over to die.

After Jesus was arrested and tried, Judas realized that he had committed a terrible sin. He then went back to the elders who had paid him the money and said that he had sinned. The rulers didn’t care. They had their man. Judas then took the money and threw it into the temple and went out and hanged himself. He did not see any way that he could be forgiven for what he had done.

Now the Jewish leaders had a problem. They didn’t know what to do with the money as it was “blood money”. They couldn’t put it back into the temple treasury so they decided to use it to buy a field that use to be used as a place where the potters would throw there broken pottery. The field would be used as a graveyard for those that couldn’t be buried in the regular cemetery as they had died by their own hand. The field was known as the potters’ field.

The value that Judas and the rulers had placed on Jesus was the price of a common slave. I suppose it was fitting that the King of the universe who came to the earth as a servant, who lived His life as a slave, should be bought and sold as a slave and die as a slave.

How do we treat the King of kings and Lord of lords? Are we selling Him for s few silver coins and the pleasures of this world? Are we any different than Judas when we betray the Lord for a few coins? Jesus demands our total commitment. He wants us to be a bond slave. He is the pearl of great price and we are selling Him for the price of a common slave.