Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis. Tonight is study #8 of Genesis, chapter 23, and we are going to read Genesis 23:12-16:

And Abraham bowed down himself before the people of the land. And he spake unto Ephron in the audience of the people of the land, saying, But if thou wilt give it, I pray thee, hear me: I will give thee money for the field; take it of me, and I will bury my dead there. And Ephron answered Abraham, saying unto him, My lord, hearken unto me: the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver; what is that betwixt me and thee? bury therefore thy dead. And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant.

I will stop reading there. In our last study, we had gone to Matthew 13 to look at a one-verse parable, in Matthew 13:44:

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.

In our last study, we saw how the field is the world and the treasure identifies with God’s elect. The “man” is the Lord Jesus who hid the treasure in the world. And God did this by keeping secret regarding who among those born into the world were to be saved, His elect. It was not knowable throughout the whole history of the world. Nobody has known. We do not know for sure if another individual is saved. It is God’s knowledge. It is in His possession alone concerning those who are His elect people.

We saw that when this man found the treasure, He hid it in the field and then, “for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.” At the end of our last study, we were seeing how this relates to the joy set before the Lord Jesus Christ, and the joy that is in heaven over one sinner that repents. The selling of all that He had can only point to how the Lord Jesus Christ emptied Himself of all His glory and the riches of His might, power, authority, dignity and honor to humble Himself and enter into the world, finally giving His life in demonstration of what He had done at the foundation of the world.

So in Christ’s death in the shedding of His blood (the life is in the blood), He purchased the field and all that was within the field. He owns the field because He bought it, and this is exactly what the Bible tells us in some places. For example, we read in 1Corinthians 6:19-20:

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.

Then in the next chapter, it says in 1Corinthians 7:23:

Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men.

Who bought us? Christ bought us. The Lord Jesus bought us. What was the price? The price was His own life. He died to pay the penalty the Law of God demanded for our sins, so He paid that price that set us free and delivered us, washing away all sin. Therefore, we became His possession.

We understand that in regard to those that are saved, the elect children of God, but notice that it also says in 2Peter 2:1:

But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

Now this is speaking of unsaved individuals because they are false teachers that are bringing damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them. That is not the new nature of a child of God; it is someone that is unsaved. So how could Christ have bought them? It was because His death was the purchase price. I used to think that this regarded the purchase price of the church, because these professed Christians would have been within those churches and congregations. But it is much more than that. His death was the purchase price of the whole world, and the church was in the world, so He also bought the church, as well as the “treasure” that was hidden in the world, His elect. He owns it all. He has purchased the world so that He could rightly and justly take the treasure from it.

You know, let us think about that parable in Matthew 13:44. Here is a man that finds treasure in a field, but someone owns that field, so he hid the treasure. He buried it and covered it over with rocks. Then late at night when there is no one around and the owner of the field would not see him, he goes and takes the treasure. Or, what if he had not paid the price for the field, but he simply went and took the treasure without properly paying for the field? If he did not pay for the field, then the treasure would not be his, because the treasure was in the field. So he had to buy the field in order to legally and justly obtain that treasure. That is how it is with this world. God has purchased the world and all that is in it. Of course, He is going to end up destroying everything else (except the treasure), and since it belongs to Him, He can do that. He will destroy this cursed creation. He will destroy the wicked. They will burn up, along with the whole earth and creation, with a fervent heat and be no more. But before that, the Lord Jesus will come and take the treasure up. He will remove the treasure from the field, and then rid Himself of the field. That is what will happen at the end of the world.

These Scriptures are very helpful. We are learning more and more, and it helps us to see in Matthew 27 that this casting down of the thirty pieces of silver is a very significant thing. It is not insignificant at all. It is not something without meaning – it is full of meaning. I want to read it again, in Matthew 27:3-10:

Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood. And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value; And gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord appointed me.

Now we would think when reading Matthew 27:9 that the book of Jeremiah would be the quote from which this passage was based, but the closest verse we can find is in the book of Zechariah. We read it before, but we will take the time to read it again, in Zechariah 11:10-13:

And I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people. And it was broken in that day: and so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that it was the word of JEHOVAH. 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. And JEHOVAH 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 JEHOVAH.

I will stop reading there. Of course, we have a problem in harmonization because we always want to harmonize our conclusions with the whole Bible. We know from Matthew 27:9 that God said this was spoken by Jeremy the prophet. Then we read of thirty pieces of silver that were given for the potter’s field. But when we turn to the book of Jeremiah, we do not find this kind of information. However, we do find that Jeremiah purchased a field. That is very curious, because when we look at the whole Bible, we do not find too many places where fields were purchased. We know Abraham purchased a field, in the book of Genesis, and I believe Jacob purchased a parcel of ground later on. I did not do an exhaustive search, so there may be a few other instances. We know that Zechariah definitely speaks of the price of a potter’s field, and we know that Jeremiah bought a field, and we will look at that later or in a future study. That is curious, is it not? For example, it does not refer to Hosea buying a field or Isaiah buying a field, and when we look at those books, we also do not find anything that would match this; but there is no activity in either book where the prophet is commanded to buy a field, as God commanded Jeremiah.

So that is interesting because that gives us a little clue (which we knew all along) that God meant to say Jeremy or Jeremiah – it was very purposeful and intentional. There was not a “scribal error,” as some would say. There are critics of the Bible that look for these kinds of things. They are very careless and disrespectful. They do not approach the Bible as the Holy Word of God that is absolutely true and faithful and without error. They are trying to find fault, so God fights against them and hides the truth from them, allowing them to believe whatever they want, so they go away with a smirk: “Look, we proved the Bible wrong. We proved the Bible is not perfect because there is a contradiction.” And, yet, all it really proves is that man is typically careless and lazy and lacking in spiritual understanding to understand the deep and hidden things of God. I am not saying that we are going to fully understand this, but we will, at the least, approach it in the right manner. And the right manner is to realize that this verse is true, and that Jeremy the prophet said these things. He said these things.

By the way, that does not mean that Zechariah did not say these things. We just read that Zechariah said very similar things. Although it is noteworthy, it was not a word-for-word quote of Zechariah either, but we would say that Zechariah was witnessing or testifying to the same truth. There is nothing that says that Jeremiah and Zechariah could not have spoken a similar truth. Of course, the prophets that spoke as God gave them utterance often did speak similar things.

So the question is not why God does not attribute this to Zechariah, but the question is how or in what manner is God attributing this to Jeremiah? We have to realize that if God had wanted to credit Zechariah, He would have said it. For example, if we go back to the book of Zechariah, as far as I can see, we find he is only called Zechariah. It says in Zechariah 1:1:

In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, came the word of JEHOVAH unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet…

Also, it says in Zechariah 1:7:

…the word of JEHOVAH unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet…

You find further references to Zechariah in Zechariah 7:1 and Zechariah 7:8. He was called Zechariah, and there is nothing in the book of Zechariah where he was called “Jeremiah” or any form of that name.

The book of Ezra refers to the prophet Zechariah, in Ezra 5:1:

Then the prophets, Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied unto the Jews that were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, even unto them.

It says in Ezra 6:14:

And the elders of the Jews builded, and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo…

From all we can see, Zechariah was always called Zechariah. There were certain Jews or Israelites that God would give more than one name, and sometimes as many as three names. We need to look at all the possibilities. If we ask the question, “Could Zechariah the prophet have also been known as Jeremiah and its Greek equivalent of Jeremy?” The answer appears to be, “No.” And more than that, Jeremy (the Greek name for Jeremiah) is found two times and Jeremias is found once, but it is all the same Greek word. It is the Greek pronunciation of the Hebrew name Jeremiah. We find in Matthew 16:13-14:

When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.

That is the same word translated as “Jeremy.” We find this word a second time in Matthew. Actually, all three instances where the name Jeremiah is mentioned in the New Testament are in the book of Matthew. The second time is in Matthew 2:16-18:

Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.

Now this verse is very helpful because it says in Matthew 2:17: “Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet…” Compare that with Matthew 27:9: “Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet…” They are identical. All the words appear to be the same in the original language. And then it refers to, “In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children…” This particular quote is found in the book of Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 31:15:

Thus saith JEHOVAH; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.

It is helpful because it is almost word-for-word, and then it also says, “Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet…” And this “Jeremy the prophet” is Jeremiah, so I believe that is confirmation that Jeremy the prophet who is mentioned in Matthew 29:9 is the prophet Jeremiah, without question.

Of course, the big question remains: “Where is this mysterious verse or statement?” We will have to think further about this. We will definitely pray for the Lord’s grace and help in giving us wisdom concerning this. I think we can understand it to at least some degree. Lord willing, we will look at this in our next Bible study.