“Thirty pieces of silver”
So they weighed out my wages, thirty pieces of silver.… Throw it to the potter, this magnificent price at which they valued me. (Zechariah 11:12–13 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A specific but arbitrary-seeming sum of money.
The cultural key
The amount is a deliberate insult. Thirty pieces (shekels) of silver was not a random figure but the exact price the Law set as compensation to an owner when his slave was gored to death by someone's ox (Exodus 21:32), the going rate for a dead slave. So when the people 'weigh out' thirty shekels as the 'wages' of God's rejected shepherd, they are valuing him at the price of a gored slave, a calculated contempt, which is why God responds with bitter sarcasm: 'that magnificent price at which they valued Me,' and orders the money thrown 'to the potter' in the temple, discarded as worthless. Matthew sees the whole scene replayed when Judas betrays Jesus for thirty pieces of silver, and the priests use the returned money to buy a potter's field (Matthew 27:9-10). A modern reader sees a sum of money; the first hearers heard the insulting price tag of a slave hung on God's shepherd.
Recovered meaning
Thirty shekels was the Law's compensation for a dead slave (Exodus 21:32), so valuing God's shepherd at that price is a stinging insult, which God answers with sarcasm and orders thrown to the potter. Matthew sees it fulfilled in Judas's betrayal money.