Maarten J.J. Menken, «The Old Testament Quotation in Matthew 27,9-10: Textual Form and Context», Vol. 83 (2002) 305-328

The source of the fulfilment quotation in Matt 27,9-10 must be Zech 11,13, but the biblical text is distorted to a degree that is unparalleled in the other fulfilment quotations, and Matthew ascribes the quotation to Jeremiah. Another difficulty is that the quotation seems to have influenced the context to a much larger extent than in the case of the other fulfilment quotations. A careful analysis of the text shows that the peculiar textual form can be explained in a relatively simple way. The influence of the quotation on Matt 27,3-8 is limited, and is best ascribed to Matthew’s redaction. After all, this fulfilment quotation appears to be less exceptional than it is sometimes supposed to be.

some traditional link between narrative content and OT passage, but there was not yet much direct influence of the OT wording on the pre-Matthean story. Occasional influence of a quotation on the context occurs at the level of Matthew’s redaction (see, e.g., the introduction of a she-donkey in addition to a colt in 21,2.7 on account of the quotation from Zech 9,9 in Matt 21,5), but it is not as extensive as it seems to be here.

        The question then arises whether the fulfilment quotation in 27,9-10 is indeed a unique one. How distorted is the quotation from Zech 11,13 in fact? Which passages from Jeremiah have influenced it, and in what way? Does it come from the same type of OT text as the other fulfilment quotations? To what degree did the quotation really influence the context? At which literary level did this influence, if any, take place? Scholars have already extensively discussed these questions, but no consensus has emerged so far. To arrive at sound results, we should, first of all, analyse the textual form of the quotation as precisely as possible, to determine what kind of biblical text has been used here, and to see how apparent irregularities can be explained: by influence of the context, by influence of other biblical passages, by editorial work of the evangelist (these possible explanations are by no means mutually exclusive). It seems to me that, if one takes these factors into account, a relatively simple explanation of the textual form of the quotation is possible. Next, we should try to establish which elements of the narrative of Matt 27,3-8 are pre-Matthean. Because the narrative belongs to Matthew’s Sondergut,