What Does Matthew 17:24 Mean?
And when they came to Capernaum, the ones who take up the two-drachma coin came to Peter and said, Does not your teacher pay it?
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter, and said, Doth not your master pay tribute?THE KEY
The collectors’ question turns a payment into a test of whose identity Peter represents.
THE MEANING
The question reaches you through the place you stand in relation to another: is the teacher you follow meeting what is expected? A demand for payment can carry a second test beneath its words, whether belonging to someone also means being counted under the same obligation.
THE ROOT
τελεῖ
telei
GROWS FROM
τελ
tel
To complete, fulfill, or bring something to its end.
The verb rendered “pay” belongs to a word family centered on completion and reaching an end. The question therefore carries the sense of whether the teacher is fulfilling what is due, as well as whether he is handing over money.
ALSO GROWS
telos: End, outcome, or goal.
τέλος
It shows the family’s sense of something brought to its conclusion, giving “pay” the added shade of completing what is owed.
teleios: Complete or mature.
τέλειος
This branch carries the same idea of completion, revealing a family of words concerned with something brought to its full measure.
THE PATTERN
An ordinary levy can become a public test of whose authority and belonging a person represents.
This they shall give, everyone who crosses over among those counted, half a shekel by the shekel of the set apart place, twenty gerahs to the shekel; half a shekel shall be the lifted offering for the LORD.Tell us therefore, What do you think? Is it lawful to give the tax to Caesar, or not?Therefore give back to all what is owed; the carried to whom the carrying is owed, the toll to whom the toll is owed, the trembling to whom trembling is owed, the weight to whom weight is owed.THE THREAD
Peter said to him, From strangers. Jesus said to him, So then the children are unbound.The collectors ask whether the teacher pays; this answer shifts attention from the charge to whether those who belong are children or strangers. The question turns on belonging, not only on the coin.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us