Genesis 45:4-5

45:4 Joseph said to his brothers, “Come closer to me,” so they came near. Then he said, “I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. 45:5 Now, do not be upset and do not be angry with yourselves because you sold me here, ¹  for God sent me ²  ahead of you to preserve life!

Psalms 105:17

105:17 He sent a man ahead of them ³  –

Joseph was sold as a servant.

Zechariah 11:12-13

11:12 Then I ⁴  said to them, “If it seems good to you, pay me my wages, but if not, forget it.” So they weighed out my payment – thirty pieces of silver. ⁵  11:13 The Lord then said to me, “Throw to the potter that exorbitant sum ⁶  at which they valued me!” So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them to the potter ⁷  at the temple ⁸  of the Lord.

Matthew 26:15

26:15 and said, “What will you give me to betray him into your hands?” ⁹  So they set out thirty silver coins for him.

Matthew 27:9

27:9 Then what was spoken by Jeremiah ¹⁰  the prophet was fulfilled: “They took the thirty silver coins, the price of the one whose price had been set by the people of Israel, ¹¹ 

Acts 7:9

7:9 The ¹²  patriarchs, because they were jealous of Joseph, sold ¹³  him into Egypt. But ¹⁴  God was with him,

[45:5]  ¹ tn Heb “let there not be anger in your eyes.”

[45:5]  ² sn You sold me here, for God sent me. The tension remains as to how the brothers’ wickedness and God’s intentions work together. Clearly God is able to transform the actions of wickedness to bring about some gracious end. But this is saying more than that; it is saying that from the beginning it was God who sent Joseph here. Although harmonization of these ideas remains humanly impossible, the divine intention is what should be the focus. Only that will enable reconciliation.

[105:17]  ³ tn After the reference to the famine in v. 16, v. 17 flashes back to events that preceded the famine (see Gen 37).

[11:12]  ⁴ sn The speaker (Zechariah) represents the Lord, who here is asking what his service as faithful shepherd has been worth in the opinion of his people Israel.

[11:12]  ⁵ sn If taken at face value, thirty pieces (shekels) of silver was worth about two and a half years’ wages for a common laborer. The Code of Hammurabi prescribes a monthly wage for a laborer of one shekel. If this were the case in Israel, 30 shekels would be the wages for 2 1/2 years (R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel, pp. 76, 204-5). For other examples of “thirty shekels” as a conventional payment, see K. Luke, “The Thirty Pieces of Silver (Zech. 11:12f.), Ind TS 19 (1982): 26-30. Luke, on the basis of Sumerian analogues, suggests that “thirty” came to be a term meaning anything of little or no value (p. 30). In this he follows Erica Reiner, “Thirty Pieces of Silver,” in Essays in Memory of E. A. Speiser, AOS 53, ed. William W. Hallo (New Haven, Conn.: American Oriental Society, 1968), 186-90. Though the 30 shekels elsewhere in the OT may well be taken literally, the context of Zech. 11:12 may indeed support Reiner and Luke in seeing it as a pittance here, not worth considering (cf. Exod 21:32; Lev 27:4; Matt 26:15).

[11:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “splendor of splendor” (אֶדֶר הַיְקָר, ’eder hayqar). This expression sarcastically draws attention to the incredibly low value placed upon the Lord’s redemptive grace by his very own people.

[11:13]  ⁷ tn The Syriac presupposes הָאוֹצָר (ha’otsar, “treasury”) for the MT הַיּוֹצֵר (hayyotser, “potter”) perhaps because of the lack of evidence for a potter’s shop in the area of the temple. The Syriac reading is followed by NAB, NRSV, TEV. Matthew seems to favor this when he speaks of Judas having thrown the thirty shekels for which he betrayed Jesus into the temple treasury (27:5-6). However, careful reading of the whole gospel pericope makes it clear that the money actually was used to purchase a “potter’s field,” hence Zechariah’s reference to a potter. The MT reading is followed by most other English versions.

[11:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “house” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[26:15]  ⁹ tn Grk “What will you give to me, and I will betray him to you?”

[27:9]  ¹⁰ tc The problematic citing of Jeremiah for a text which appears to come from Zechariah has prompted certain scribes to alter it. Codex 22 has Ζαχαρίου (Zacariou, “Zechariah”) while Φ 33 omit the prophet’s name altogether. And codex 21 and the Latin ms l change the prophet’s name to “Isaiah,” in accordance with natural scribal proclivities to alter the text toward the most prominent OT prophet. But unquestionably the name Jeremiah is the wording of the original here, because it is supported by virtually all witnesses and because it is the harder reading. See D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” EBC 8:562-63, for a discussion of the textual and especially hermeneutical problem.

[27:9]  ¹¹ tn Grk “the sons of Israel,” an idiom referring to the people of Israel as an ethnic entity (L&N 11.58).

[7:9]  ¹² tn Grk “And the.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.

[7:9]  ¹³ tn The meaning “sell” for the middle voice of ἀποδίδωμι (apodidwmi) is given by BDAG 110 s.v. 5.a. See Gen 37:12-36, esp. v. 28.

[7:9]  ¹⁴ tn Though the Greek term here is καί (kai), in context this remark is clearly contrastive: Despite the malicious act, God was present and protected Joseph.