44, 45. (a) What was done with the money at which Zechariah was priced? (b) What was done with the money that Judas Iscariot accepted for betraying Jesus?

⁴⁴ Judas Iscariot accepted this price. He had been the treasurer of the twelve apostles, but he did not put the money into their money box. He kept it for himself​—for a while! (John 12:4-6) In the ancient case of the prophet Zechariah, he did not keep the thirty silver shekels that had been paid to him as his wages. The money really belonged to his Master, Jehovah, and so Jehovah said to him: “Throw it to the treasury.” Zechariah did so. (Zechariah 11:12, 13) His action was a premonition of something. Not that Zechariah prefigured Judas Iscariot, but, just the same, like Zechariah, Judas did not keep his thirty silver shekels. What he did with them, or, rather, what resulted from his disposing of the betrayal money is reported to us:

So he threw the silver pieces into the temple and withdrew, and went off and hanged himself.