The time of this section is evidently in immediate succession to that of the preceding one. The brief but most pregnant incident which it records is given by Matthew alone - for whom, no doubt, it would have a peculiar interest, from its relation to his own town and his own familiar lake.
And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money - the double drachma; a sum equal to two Attic drachmas, and corresponding to the Jewish “half-shekel,” payable, towards the maintenance of the temple and its services, by every male Jew of twenty years old and upward. For the origin of this annual tax, see Exo 30:13, Exo 30:14; 2Ch 24:6, 2Ch 24:9. Thus, it will be observed, it was not a civil, but an ecclesiastical tax. The tax mentioned in Mat 17:25 was a civil one. The whole teaching of this very remarkable scene depends upon this distinction.
came to Peter - at whose house Jesus probably resided while at Capernaum. This explains several things in the narrative.
and said, Doth not your master pay tribute? - The question seems to imply that the payment of this tax was voluntary, but expected; or what, in modern phrase, would be called a “voluntary assessment.”