And when they came to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter, and said, Does not your teacher pay tribute?
Read Chapter 17
Hilary of Poitiers
AD 368
The Lord is asked to pay a halfshekel. For this was the amount that the law had established for those serving in the temple for the redemption of soul and body. But the law, as we know, is the foreshadowing of the future (for it was not the value of the coin that God desired so that with such a small expense redemption of soul and body might be granted for sins). Therefore the offering of this halfshekel was established so that we might offer ourselves certified and professed and enrolled in the name of Christ, in Christ who is the true temple of God, and it was established as testimony of the Son of God.
After Caesar Augustus, Judea was made a tributary state and all the people were registered in the census. So Joseph and his kinswoman Mary had set off for Bethlehem. Once again, since Jesus had been brought up in Nazareth, which is a town of Galilee lying close to Capernaum, he is asked to pay taxes. Because of the magnitude of the miracles he had done, those who demanded this tax do not dare to ask him. Instead, they meet a disciple and maliciously ask whether he should pay taxes or defy Caesar’s will. .
And what is this "didrachma(temple tax)?" When God had slain the firstborn of the Egyptians, then He took the tribe of Levi in their stead. Afterwards, because the number of the tribe was less than of the firstborn among the Jews, for them that are wanting to make up the number, He commandeda shekel to be contributed: and moreover a custom came thereby in force, that the firstborn should pay this tribute.
Because then Christ was a firstborn child, and Peter seemed to be first of the disciples, to him they come: their way being, as I suppose, to exact it in every city; wherefore also in His native place they approached Him; for Capernaum was accounted His native place.
And Him indeed they dared not approach, but Peter; nor him either with much violence, but rather gently. For not as blaming, but as inquiring, they said, "Does not your Master pay the didrachma?" For the right opinion of Him they had not as yet, but as concerning a man, so did they feel; yet they rendered Him some r...
God wished to consecrate to Himself the tribe of Levi in the place of the first-born sons of the Hebrews. The tribe of Levi was found to number only 22,000; yet the first-born sons of all twelve tribes numbered 22,273. (Num. 3:43-50) In place of those first-born sons that exceeded the number of the tribe of Levi, God decreed that for each such first-born son two drachmas be given to the priests. From then on it became the custom simply for every first-born son to pay the two-drachma tax, which is the equivalent of five shekels, or two hundred obols. As the Lord, too, was a first-born son, He also paid the tax. Perhaps in awe of Christ because of His wonderworking, they did not ask Christ, but Peter; but, more likely, they asked craftily, as if they were saying, "Surely your teacher, who is opposed to the law, has not agreed to pay the two-drachma tax?"
