Biblion Bible Commentary
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The Coin in the Fish
Matthew 17:24-27
24 When they had come to Capernaum, those who collected the didrachma coins came to Peter, and said, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the didrachma?” · WEB
A temple tax collector puts a question to Peter, and the answer establishes an exemption and then waives it.
When they had come to Capernaum, those who collected the didrachma coins came to Peter, and said, "Doesn't your teacher pay the didrachma?" Matthew 17:24.
Only this Gospel carries the incident, and it belongs to the tax collector who wrote it. The didrachma is the temple tax, half a shekel, laid on every Israelite man for the service of the sanctuary Exodus 30:13–14. It is not a Roman levy. The money went to the house of God.
Peter answers before he thinks — "Yes" — and the question is taken up before he can report it. When he came into the house, Jesus anticipated him Matthew 17:25. He is asked about it before he has said a word about it.
"What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth receive toll or tribute? From their children, or from strangers?"
The question is about how any royal household works, and the answer is obvious enough that Peter gives it in two words. Kings tax other people. "Therefore the children are exempt" Matthew 17:26.
The claim inside that is easy to miss because it is made so quietly. The tax funds his Father's house. A son is not charged admission to his own home — and the argument, which Peter has just conceded without seeing where it went, follows from the confession he made in the previous chapter.
"But, lest we cause them to stumble, go to the sea, cast a hook, and take up the first fish that comes up" Matthew 17:27.
The exemption is established and then set aside, and the reason given is the effect on other people. A right that is real can be waived, and the ground for waiving it is that insisting on it would trip somebody up over a matter that was not worth it. That principle runs through the letters later, argued at length about food and freedom 1 Corinthians 8:9 Romans 14:13; here it is settled in half a verse by a man declining to make a point he was entitled to make.
The means of payment is the strangest detail in the book. A hook, one fish, a coin in its mouth worth exactly two temple taxes. No crowd sees it, no argument is won by it, and it is never mentioned again. "Take that, and give it to them for me and you" — and the last two words are their own small kindness. The coin covers both of them.
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