And I said to the remaining kings of Judah.

"If it pleases you, give [Me] My hire...⁠" Fulfill My commandments, and that will be My payment for all the good that I have given you; as they give hire to a shepherd, I will return and tend you.

and if not, forbear And I, too, will not do good for you. We find that the Holy One, blessed be He, said similarly to Yechezkel: "He that hears, let him hear, and he that forbears, let him forbear" (3:27).

And they weighed out My hire, thirty pieces of silver Jonathan paraphrases: And they performed My will with a few men. There were a few good men among them, such as the craftsmen and the sentries, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah, and Yechezkel. But I do not know how to explain the expression here of thirty pieces of silver exactly, except that כֶּסֶף is an expression of desire. Our Sages, too, explained it this way in Chulin (92a). They brought proof from, "The bundle of the desirable ones He took in His hand" (Mishlei 7:20). The thirty they explained in the following manner: There are forty-five righteous men in every generation. They brought proof from, "a חֹמֶר of barley and a לֶתֶךְ of barley" (Hoshea 3:2) – fifteen righteous in Babylon and thirty in Eretz Israel. It is said: "And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and I cast them into the house of the Lord in Eretz Israel.⁠" The number thirty is explained by the Midrash Aggadah (Cf. Bereshit Rabbah 49:3, Pesikta deRav Kahana 88a), that our father Abraham was promised that no generation would have fewer than thirty righteous in men, the number of: "So shall your seed be" (Bereshit 15:8). The word יִהְיֶה has the numerical value of thirty.