The collectors wanted to know whether Jesus would pay the yearly tribute for the temple. They did not ask Jesus Himself. They went to Peter, one of His closest followers. The text does not say whether they suspected Him of avoiding it or were simply doing their job.

This was not a Roman tax. Barnes says it was "not paid to the Roman government, but to the Jewish collectors," and Gill identifies it as the half shekel that every Israelite paid each year toward the charges of the temple service. So the question was really whether this Teacher honored the house of God like every other Israelite.

Peter answered, "Yes" (Matthew 17:25). When he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first and asked whether kings take tribute from their own children or from strangers. Peter said, "Of strangers," and Jesus replied, "Then are the children free" (Matthew 17:25-26). Even so, Jesus said, "lest we should offend them," and sent Peter to catch a fish with a piece of money in its mouth: "that take, and give unto them for me and thee" (Matthew 17:27).

The law of Moses required every man counted in Israel, "from twenty years old and above," to give "half a shekel" as "atonement money" for "the service of the tabernacle" (Exodus 30:13-16). In Jesus' day this became a yearly payment for the temple. The Greek word for "tribute money" is didrachma, a double drachma, the coin that equaled the half shekel.

Gill, drawing on Jewish writings, says the collection was made in the month Adar, when tables were set up to receive it. The collectors call Jesus Peter's "master," translating didaskalos, teacher.

A routine question about a temple payment becomes a doorway into who Jesus is. Matthew Henry says, "Peter felt sure that his Master was ready to do what was right." Peter was right that Jesus would pay. But in the house Jesus showed him something more: the One being asked to pay for God's house is the Son of the King who owns it (Matthew 17:25-26).

Jesus then paid anyway, providing the coin through a fish. Matthew Henry writes, "The power and the poverty of Christ should be mentioned together." The One who could command a fish to carry a coin chose to live as a man under the law and to avoid needless offense.