Matthew 17:24

The Temple Tax

17:24 After ¹  they arrived in Capernaum, ²  the collectors of the temple tax ³  came to Peter and said, “Your teacher pays the double drachma tax, doesn’t he?”

Matthew 10:29

10:29 Aren’t two sparrows sold for a penny? ⁴  Yet not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. ⁵ 

Matthew 13:33

The Parable of the Yeast

13:33 He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with ⁶  three measures ⁷  of flour until all the dough had risen.” ⁸ 

Matthew 18:9

18:9 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye than to have ⁹  two eyes and be thrown into fiery hell. ¹⁰ 

Matthew 17:27

17:27 But so that we don’t offend them, go to the lake and throw out a hook. Take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth, you will find a four drachma coin. ¹¹  Take that and give it to them for me and you.”

[17:24]  ¹ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[17:24]  ² map For location see Map1 D2; Map2 C3; Map3 B2.

[17:24]  ³ tn Grk “Collectors of the double drachma.” This is a case of metonymy, where the coin formerly used to pay the tax (the double drachma coin, or δίδραχμον [didracmon]) was put for the tax itself (cf. BDAG 241 s.v.). Even though this coin was no longer in circulation in NT times and other coins were used to pay the tax, the name for the coin was still used to refer to the tax itself.

[10:29]  ⁴ sn The penny refers to an assarion, a small Roman copper coin. One of them was worth one-sixteenth of a denarius or less than a half hour’s average wage. Sparrows were the cheapest items sold in the market. God knows about even the most financially insignificant things; see Isa 49:15.

[10:29]  ⁵ tn Or “to the ground without the knowledge and consent of your Father.”

[13:33]  ⁷ tn Grk “hid in.”

[13:33]  ⁸ sn This measure was a saton, the Greek name for the Hebrew term “seah.” Three of these was a very large quantity of flour, since a saton is a little over 16 pounds (7 kg) of dry measure (or 13.13 liters). So this was over 47 lbs (21 kg) of flour total, enough to feed over a hundred people.

[13:33]  ⁹ tn Grk “it was all leavened.”

[18:9]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “than having.”

[18:9]  ¹¹ tn Grk “the Gehenna of fire.”

[17:27]  ¹³ sn The four drachma coin was a stater (στατήρ, stathr), a silver coin worth four drachmas. One drachma was equivalent to one denarius, the standard pay for a day’s labor (L&N 6.80).