Wesley Corpus

Cut off - By the sword or famine. The flesh - Either live to be besieged, 'till hunger makes the living eat the dead, or by seditions and bloody intestine quarrels, destroy each other. Even beauty - Which was the beauty and glory of them, the covenant of God, with all the blessings of it. That I might break - Declare it null. Christ calls it his covenant, for he was the mediator of it. Broken - The covenant was disannulled. That waited - Believed in him, and obeyed him. Knew - Saw, and owned God in all this. And I said - Upon parting, Christ seems after the manner of men, to mind them of his claims for them, and desire them to reckon with him. If ye think good - He puts it to them, whether they thought he deserved ought at their hands So they - The rulers of the Jews, the high priest, chief priests, and pharisees. Weighed - Which was the manner of paying money in those days. Thirty pieces - Which amounts to thirty - seven shillings and six - pence, the value of the life of a slave, Exod 21:32. This was fulfilled when they paid Judas Iscariot so much to betray Christ. The Lord - God the Father. Cast it - As being so little, it would hardly purchase any thing but what was the cheapest among them. A goodly price - God upbraids the shepherds of his people, who prized the great Shepherd no higher. Cast them to the potter - Or rather, cast them into the house of the Lord for the potter; all which the Jewish rulers acted over. Then - So soon as I saw what value they put upon me. I cut asunder - Christ did it really, the prophet did it in the type. Break - Declare it broken. The brother - hood - That friendship which had been among them. Judah - The two tribes, and the remnant of the ten tribes. Take unto thee - O Zechariah, personate a shepherd quite different from him thou hast represented. Who shall not visit - Who seeks not out those that are lost. The young one - Which are aptest to perish through weakness. Nor heal - But leaves it to die of its wounds. That stand still - Not able to go forward.