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
John Chrysostom
AD 407
See how He neither declines the tribute, nor simply commands to pay it, but having first proved Himself not liable to it, then He gives it: the one to save the people, the other, those around Him, from offense. For He gives it not at all as a debt, but as doing the best for their weakness. Elsewhere, however, He despises the offense, when He was discoursing of meats, Matthew 15:11 teaching us to know at what seasons we ought to consider them that are offended, and at what to disregard them.
And indeed by the very mode of giving He discloses Himself again. For wherefore does He not command him to give of what they have laid up? That, as I have said, herein also He might signify Himself to be God of all, and the sea also to be under His rule. For He had indeed signified this even already, by His rebuke, and by His commanding this same Peter to walk on the waves; but He now again signifies the self-same thing, though in another way, yet so as to cause herein great amazement. For neither was it a small thing, to foretell that the first, who out of those depths should come in his way, would be the fish that would pay the tribute; and having cast forth His commandment like a net into that abyss, to bring up the one that bore the piece of money; but it was of a divine and unutterable power, thus to make even the sea bear gifts, and that its subjection to Him should be shown on all hands, as well when in its madness it was silent, Matthew 8:26 and when, though fierce, it received its fellow servant; Matthew 14:29 as now again, when it makes payment in His behalf to them that are demanding it.
And give unto them, He says, for me and you. Do you see the exceeding greatness of the honor? See also the self-command of Peter's mind. For this point Mark, the follower of this apostle, does not appear to have set down, because it indicated the great honor paid to him; but while of the denial he wrote as well as the rest, the things that make him illustrious he has passed over in silence, his master perhaps entreating him not to mention the great things about himself. And He used the phrase, for me and you, because Peter too was a firstborn child.
Now as you are amazed at Christ's power, so I bid you admire also the disciple's faith, that to a thing beyond possibility he so gave ear. For indeed it was very far beyond possibility by nature. Wherefore also in requital for his faith, He joined him to Himself in the payment of the tribute.
