However, lest we should offend them, go to the sea, and cast a hook, and take up the fish that first comes up; and when you have opened its mouth, you shall find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for me and you.
All Commentaries on Matthew 17:27 Go To Matthew 17
Jerome
AD 420
That they were thus made exceeding sorrowful, came not of their lack of faith; but out of their love of their Master they could not endure to hear of any hurtor indignity for Him.
Or otherwise; From the time of Augustus Caesar Judaea was made tributary, and all the inhabitants were registered, as Joseph with Mary his kinswoman gave in His name at Bethlehem. Again, because the Lord was brought up at Nazareth, which is a town of Galilee subject to Capernaum, it is there that the tribute is asked of Him; but for that His miracles were so great, those who collected it did not dare to ask Himself, but make up to the disciple.
Or, They enquire with malicious purpose whether He pays tribute, or resists Caesar's will.
Before any hint from Peter, the Lord puts the question to him, that His disciples might not be offended at the demand of tribute, when they see that He knows even those things that are done in His absence. It follows, “But he said, From strangers; Jesus said unto him, Then are the children free.”.
But our Lord was the son of the king, both according to the flesh, and according to the Spirit; whether as sprung of the seed of David, or as the Word of the Almighty Father; therefore as the king’s son He owed no tribute.
I am at a loss what first to admire in this passage; whether the foreknowledge, or the mighty power of the Saviour. His foreknowledge, in that He knew that afish had a stater in its mouth, and that that fish should be the first taken; His mighty power, if the stater were created in the fish’s mouth at His word, and if by His command that which was to happen was ordered. Christ then, for His eminent love, endured the cross, and paid tribute; how wretched we who arecalled by the name of Christ, though we do nothing worthy of so great dignity, yet in respect of His majesty, pay no tribute, but are exempt from tax as the King's sons. But even in its literal import it edifies the hearer to learn, that so great was the Lord’s poverty, that He had not whence to pay the tribute for Himself and His Apostle. Should any object that Judas bore money in a bag, we shall answer, Jesus held it a fraud to divert that which was the poor’s toHis own use, and left us an example therein.
Or; That fish which was first taken is the first Adam, who is set free by the second Adam; and that which is found in his mouth, that is, in his confession, is given for Peter and for the Lord.
