Long ago, when we could not buy our plates and glasses made in China, potters were the professionals that made it possible to have a plate, a glass, cup, vase or water jug. They could be sophisticated or cheap, but they were basically clay. Clay with a form, later hardened by fire.
Just as Adam was the vessel of clay for our Father‘s ruach (breath of life), all of us are likewise vessels of his breath. If Adam was made out of clay, was he hardened by fire like a pot? or is this still to happen for his future generations, in our trial by fire?
The price of a slave – the price of Yahusha’s life
In Matthew 26:14-16, we know that the price of Judas‘ betrayal to deliver the Messiah to his persecutors was 30 pieces of silver. Besides fulfilling several Messianic prophecies, 30 pieces of silver was also the price marked for a servant's life, as we see in Exodus 21:32:
“If the bull gores a male or female slave, the owner must pay 30 shekels of silver to the master of the slave, and the bull is to be stoned to death.”
Back to Judas, once he regretted his deeds, he decided to give the money back and the religious leaders - unwilling to put it back in the treasury as it was blood money - used it to buy the potters field and named it field of blood. The potters field was a piece of land used by the potter to throw away the unwanted and broken pottery, or the pieces that were defective. Now, if we are all but pots among earthly pots, are we all made alike with a chance to be used in the great banquet? Are we all broken and deserving to be thrown at the potters field? or, in a more Calvinist point of view, are some of us fashioned to be discarded, whereas some are made to receive grace?
Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honourable use and another for dishonourable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? (Romans 9:21-24)
The servant's wage is paid to the potter
If our Messiah paid our debts and his life was worth 30 pieces of silver to those who hated him, could we connect this to Zechariah? Can we say that the servant's life worth goes to the potter for all the disposed pottery vessels?
Then I said to them, “If it seems good to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” And they weighed out as my wages thirty pieces of silver. Then Yahuah said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—the lordly price at which I was priced by them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of Yahuah, to the potter. (Zechariah 11:12-13)
Whatever the case, remember this
Can the vessel tell the potter what to do?
“Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’? Woe to him who says to a father, ‘What are you begetting?’ or to a woman, ‘With what are you in labor?’” (Isaiah 45:9-10)
Here's an interesting video of an ancient pottery method.
Shalom!