Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/421



REJECTION OF THE TRUE SHEPHERD 405

potter who worked for the Temple had his workshop in the valley of Ben Hinnom, " which having been formerly the scene of the abominable worship of Moloch, was regarded with abhorrence as an unclean place after its defilement by Josiah, and served as the slaughter-house for the city. 1 But, as Keil observes with truth, " It by no means follows from Jer. xviii. 2 and xix. 2 (on which Hengstenberg bases his supposition), that this potter dwelt in the valley of Ben Hinnom."

On the contrary, the passages in Jeremiah which are referred to would rather lead us to the opposite conclusion, for when we read that God said to the prophet, " Go, and buy a potter s earthen bottle (or l pitcher ), and take of the elders of the people, and go forth unto the valley of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the gate Harsith " (or "pottery gate "), z it seems pretty clear that the pottery itself, where the pitcher was to be bought, stood inside the city gate, since he had to " go forth " from it toward the valley. But even if the potter had had his workshop in the valley of Hinnom, which was regarded as unclean, he would not necessarily have become unclean himself in consequence ; " And if he had been looked upon as unclean, he could not possibly have worked for the Temple, or supplied the cooking utensils for use in the service of God namely, for boiling the holy sacrificial flesh."

Without stopping to analyse here other unsatisfactory explanations, I would briefly state that the reason why the thirty pieces of silver which Jehovah ironically calls the " magnificence of the price " at which He was valued by them, were to be flung to the potter, was most probably because the potter was one of the lowest of the labouring classes, whose labour was estimated as of comparatively trifling value, and " whose productions, when marred by any trifling accident, could be easily replaced at an in significant expenditure." The phrase, " Throw to the potter," may perhaps have been " a proverbial expression for contemptuous treatment " ; but this also is only a con-

1 2 Kings xxiii. 10. 2 Jer. xix. I, 2.