Jesus Miraculously Provides Tribute Money

Matthew 17:24. Tribute money] This was not a civil, but an ecclesiastical tax. It consisted of an annual payment of a half shekel or didrachma and was levied upon all males twenty years of age and older for the maintenance of the temple. As originally announced by Moses, it was an offering whereby men made an atonement for their sins; that is, the payment was in the nature of a sacrifice designed to accompany prayers beseeching forgiveness from personal sins. (Exodus 30:11-16.) Jesus, of course, was without sin and needed to offer no such supplication. Indeed, in his days, rabbis and priests generally claimed exemption from this tax.

Matthew 17:25; 25. The house] Probably Peter's own home in Capernaum, where Jesus was wont to stay when in that city.

I. V. Matthew 17:24. Rebuked him] Peter had erred; Jesus was not obligated to pay the atonement money. As Jesus then explained, even earthly princes were free from capitation taxes; why then should it be supposed that the Son of God was obligated to pay for the upkeep of the house of his Father?

Matthew 17:27. A piece of money] A stater, a coin equal to the exact amount of the tax for two persons. Why did Jesus pay this tax? As the King's Son he need not have done so. But such a course would have offended the Jews unnecessarily, perhaps hindering the conversion of some of them. Why was the money provided in a miraculous way? If our Lord had paid the levy from available funds, or from money earned by catching and selling fish, he would have thus submitted to the tax as though he were a man in the same class as Peter and the others. But by providing the money through the use of knowledge which no mortal man possessed, he dramatized both the voluntary nature of his submission to the law and the exalted nature of his position as the King's Son.

Matthew 17:27; Me and thee] It is significant that Jesus did not say us but me and thee. Such careful choice of words was in keeping with his in varying custom of maintaining a distinction between himself and other men. He was the Son of God, literally; other men had mortal fathers. Thus, for instance, he was careful to say. "I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God and your God" (John 20:17), not unto our Father and our God.