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23 The final two elements in the prediction are the same as in 16:21, but the
statement of the disciples’ emotional reaction is new. In 16:22–28 we could
infer it from Peter’s immediate response and from the warnings Jesus went
on to utter, but now Matthew makes it explicit, using a strong expression
which he will use of the disciples again in 26:22. The fact that their dismay
follows immediately upon the prediction of Jesus’ resurrection underlines
the point we noted above (especially on 16:21), that the repeated inclusion of
the resurrection as the conclusion of Jesus’ destiny in Jerusalem seems to
have gone completely over the disciples’ heads; the prediction of his
rejection, suffering and death so dominated their thinking that they could
not see beyond the death to the vindication and glory.
3. Paying the Temple Tax (17:24–27)
²⁴When they had come to Capernaum Peter was approached by the collectors of
the temple tax,¹ who asked him, “Doesn’t your² teacher pay the temple tax?”
²⁵“Yes,” he replied. When he came into the house Jesus spoke to him first: “What
do you think, Simon?” he said; “The kings of the earth—from whom do they
levy duties and tax,³ from their own sons or from strangers?”⁴ ² When Peter
replied “From strangers,” Jesus said to him, “Well then the sons are free. ²⁷But so
that we don’t cause them to stumble, go down to the lake and cast your fishhook;
take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a
silver coin⁵ there; take it and give it to them for me and yourself.”
This apparently rather trivial exchange in fact has significant implications for the
reader’s understanding of the status and mission of Jesus. The half-shekel temple
tax was an annual levy on adult Jewish males, and one which unlike Roman
taxes (see on 22:15–22) might be expected to be paid as a patriotic duty, but the
Sadducees disapproved of it as a relatively recent Pharisaic institution⁷ and the
members of the Qumran community on principle paid it only once in a lifetime.⁸
This approach from the tax-collectors suggests a suspicion that Jesus also might
not accept this as an obligation. Their question¹ is of the form that expects the
answer Yes, and Peter takes that answer for granted, but the fact that they had to
ask it at all is surely significant. We have already seen a hint of Jesus’ radical
attitude to the temple in 12:6 and as the confrontation develops in Jerusalem this
will become increasingly clear, both in his demonstration in the temple courtyard
in 21:12–17 (which will include an attack on those who changed money for the
payment of this tax) and in the developing critique which culminates in his
prediction that the temple will be destroyed (23:38; 24:2). So it may well be that
he was already gaining a reputation as one who sat light to the authority of the
temple and its functionaries, a reputation which would contribute significantly to
his eventual trial and execution (26:61; 27:40). This approach from the collectors
was therefore more than just an administrative question. And Jesus’ response to
Peter in the house confirms that he did not regard himself as standing in the
same relation to the temple as other Jewish men; he, unlike them, is a member of
the “family,” and the word “sons” invites us to reflect on Jesus’ special
relationship with the God whose temple the tax was meant to service.
The implication of the dialogue with Peter seems to be then that since Jesus has
the status of a “son” in relation to God, he is “free” and so should be exempt
from paying the tax (though the last step of the argument is left unstated). If he
nonetheless does pay it, therefore, it is as a matter of accommodation, to avoid
giving offense (which is what the verb “cause to stumble” probably means in this
context), rather than of obligation. We are not told that he did in fact pay it, but
the instructions given to Peter in v. 27 allow us to assume that he did. If so, this
is an interesting contrast to other matters of controversy on which Jesus was only
too willing to stand up against practices and assumptions which he saw as wrong
in principle, and so to incur the hostility of those of a more conventional outlook,
as we shall see when he comes to Jerusalem. But where it is his own personal
privilege that is at stake, he has no problem with accommodating himself to what
is expected of him, and in this way identifying himself with the traditions of his
people. Is there a parallel here with his baptism, which, according to 3:14–15,
was undertaken not because he personally required it, but to identify with
repentant Israel and so to “fulfill all that is required of us”? The Jesus of
Matthew’s gospel is not one to stand on his personal dignity, nor to dig his heels
in on matters of secondary importance. His followers have not always been so
perceptive in differentiating between matters of principle and adiaphora.¹¹
The instruction to Peter in v. 27 is a puzzle. The pericope as a whole is not a
miracle story but a debate, with the miraculous solution of v. 27 unexpectedly
tacked on at the end. And while Jesus’ words about the fish and the coin read
like a matter-of-fact instruction which Peter is expected to carry out to the letter,
there is no account of the proposed miracle actually taking place. In view of
similar popular stories about treasure found in fish (see below) some interpreters
read v. 27 as a legendary addition to an otherwise mundane discussion of
economic policy, but in that case it is strange that the catch is not actually
narrated. At the other extreme it may be read as a playful comment by Jesus,
never intended to be taken literally, on how Peter might raise the necessary sum;
it would thus be an ironic reflection of the lack of ready money in the disciple
group. There seems no way to decide the matter definitively, but it would be as
unwise to include this purely verbal instruction, with no statement that what was
proposed actually happened, in a list of Jesus’ miracles¹² as it would be to
assume on the basis of v. 20 that the disciples did actually move mountains.
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