Matthew 17:24

εἰς Καπ.: home again after lengthened wandering with the satisfaction home gives even after the most exhilarating holiday excursions.

Matthew 17:24. προσῆλθον οἱ, etc.: home-coming often means return to care. Here are the receivers of custom, as soon as they hear of the arrival, demanding tribute. From the Mount of Transfiguration to money demands which one is too poor to meet, what a descent! The experience has been often repeated in the lives of saints, sons of God, men of genius. τὰ δίδραχμα : a δίδραχμον was a coin equal to two Attic drachmae, and to the Jewish half shekel = about fifteen pence; payable annually by every Jew above twenty as a tribute to the temple. It was a tribute of the post-exilic time based on Exodus 30:13-16. After the destruction of the Temple the tax continued to be paid to the Capitol (Joseph. Bel. I. vii. 6, 7). The time of collection was in the month Adar (March). τῷ Π. Peter evidently the principal man of the Jesus-circle for outsiders as well as internally. οὐ τελεῖ. The receivers are feeling their way. Respect for the Master (διδάσκαλος) makes them go to the disciples for information, and possibly the question was simply a roundabout hint that the tax was overdue.