And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter, and said, Doth not your master pay tribute?
Ver. 24:. They that received tribute money] This didrachmum or half-shekel was formerly paid by the Israelites every year, after they were twenty years old, toward the temple, Exodus 30:13. Caesar, by taking it from the temple and turning it to a tribute, did indeed take away from God that which was God's. This very tribute was paid afterwards by the Jews toward the Roman capitol, by virtue of a decree made by Vespasian. How just is it in God, that the spoiler should be spoiled, Isaiah 30:1, that the Roman emperors, that so robbed and wronged God, should be robbed of their rights, as they are by the pope's usurpations.
Doth not your master pay tribute] Is he either born or bought free? SeeActs 22:28. But if neither, they might (had they had any goodness in them) have spared him, so public, so profitable a person, that had so well deserved of the whole nation, so well merited an immunity, an indemnity. But all is lost that is laid out upon ungrateful persons or people. Covetousness hath no respect to anything but to its own profit, and knows no other language than the horse leech's, Give, give, Rem, Rem, quocunque modo rem, without any respect of persons, however well deserving.