When they came to Capernaum introduces a new section where public reading is frequently begun. Therefore it is important to identify they as “Jesus and his disciples” (Good News Translation, New International Version, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, Bible en français courant).

Capernaum has already been identified as a town in this Gospel, but some translators have nevertheless said here “the town of Capernaum.”

The collectors of the half-shekel tax went up to Peter and said: there is apparently a time lapse between the arrival of the group in Capernaum and this event, since Jesus is evidently in the house (verse 25) at the time that the tax collectors approach Peter. The verse may then be opened as follows: “Jesus and his disciples came to Capernaum. While they were there, the collectors of the Temple tax came to Peter and asked….”

The half-shekel tax (literally “the two-drachma coin”) indicates the amount, while Good News Translation defines the nature of the tax (“the Temple tax”). New Jerusalem Bible translates “the half-shekel,” with a footnote “a yearly tax levied on individuals for the upkeep of the Temple.” Reference is to the tax which, according to Exodus 30.13, was required of every male Jew from the age of twenty onward. After the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70, the Romans continued to collect this annual tax, but applied it to the support of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.

It is not the amount of the half-shekel tax that is really important in this verse, but rather the nature of it, as seen in Good News Translation. Translators can say “the tax all the men (or, all Jewish men) paid for the Temple expenses” or “the tax paid to support the Temple.”

The collectors of the half-shekel tax can then be “the men who collected the money everyone (or, all Jewish men) paid for the Temple.”

Some translators have wanted to give some indication of the amount of money and have said “the tax of money of half a shekel” or even “the money called a half-shekel that people had to pay to the Temple.” It is also possible to indicate in a footnote that this was about half the wages a laborer would earn in a day. But this is marginal information and does not need to be specified in the text. Another rendering some have used is “the small amount of money people had to pay to support the Temple.” But translators should be careful not to make the expression too cumbersome nor such that it gives more emphasis to the amount of money than to its function.

For “Temple,” see comments on 4.5.

Does not your teacher pay the tax? is a difficult question form in English, which is simplified in Good News Translation: “Does your teacher pay the Temple tax?” The question does seem to expect “Yes” as an answer, so “Your teacher does pay his Temple tax, doesn’t he?” will also be a good rendering. Tax is the same Greek word translated half-shekel tax by Revised Standard Version in the first half of the verse; both Good News Translation and New English Bible have “Temple tax” for each of the two occurrences.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .