Zechariah 11:12: “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.”
Some numbers in the Bible feel meaningful right away. Seven shows up everywhere. Twelve feels important. Forty usually means someone is about to have a long, uncomfortable season.
But thirty pieces of silver? That one just feels… well, uncomfortable.
In Zechariah 11, the prophet acts out the role of a shepherd who has done his job faithfully—only to be rejected by the very people he cared for. When he finally asks for his wages, they count out thirty pieces of silver. God’s response (Zechariah 11:13) is almost painfully sarcastic: “And the Lord said to me, ‘Throw it to the potter’—the handsome price at which they valued me! So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them to the potter at the house of the Lord.”
Translation: “So that’s what you think I’m worth.”
If you are familiar with the Law, you might have caught the insult. Thirty shekels was the price of a slave (Exodus 21:32).
It wasn’t generous. It wasn’t thoughtful. It was the bare minimum. It’s what you paid when a life didn’t seem to count for much.
And if we’re honest, that sounds uncomfortably familiar.
Now fast-forward to the New Testament, and Zechariah’s words show up again. Judas goes to the chief priests and asks a question that still stings: “What are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to you?” (Matthew 26:14). Their answer? — Thirty pieces of silver.
No bargaining. No awkward pause. The Son of God is priced at the same level as a slave.
That’s hard to read without wincing.
But Scripture isn’t finished with those thirty coins yet. In Hosea 3, the prophet buys back his unfaithful wife, Gomer, for what amounts to—you guessed it—about thirty shekels. Though his payment is a combination of money and grain—its the same price. But—it’s a completely different heart.
One transaction sells out the innocent. The other redeems the guilty.
That contrast says a lot about us—and even more about God.
Because if we’re being honest, we still find a form of Judas’s question creeping into our own thinking. What will this cost me (us)? Is this worth the effort? How much obedience is reasonable here? It turns out we’re pretty good at doing quiet math when faith gets inconvenient.
Thirty pieces of silver forces us to face an uncomfortable truth: left to ourselves, we often value Christ far too cheaply. But God never returns that favor. He doesn’t negotiate our worth. He doesn’t try to get a lower price. He pays the price in full—and then gives more than we ever deserved.
And that fact should change how we live—how we love—and how we decide what truly matters.
