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Mat_22:21 f. “There He catches them in their own trap,” Luther. The pointing to the image and inscription furnishes the questioners with ocular demonstration of the actual existence and practical recognition of Caesar’s sway, and from these Jesus infers not merely the lawfulness, but the duty of paying to Caesar what belongs to Caesar (namely, the money, which shows, by the stamp it bears, the legitimacy of the existing rule); but He also recognises at the same time the necessity of attending to their theocratic duties, which are not to be regarded as in any way compromised by their political circumstances: and to God what is God’s (what you derive from Him in virtue of His dominion over you). By this is not meant simply the temple tribute, nor the repentance which God may have desired to awaken through punishing them with a foreign rule (Ebrard), nor merely the life of the soul (Tertullian, Erasmus, Neander); but everything, in short, of a material, religious, and ethical nature, which God, as sovereign of the theocratic people, is entitled to exact from them as His due. By the τὰ Καίσαρος , on the other hand, we are not to understand merely the civil tax, but everything to which Caesar was entitled in virtue of his legitimate rule over the theocratic nation. So with this reply Jesus disposes of the ensnaring question, answering it immediately with decision and clearness, and with that admirable tact which is only met with where there is a moral insight into the whole domain of duty; in a quick and overpowering manner He disarmed His adversaries, and laid the foundation for the Christian doctrine which was more fully developed afterwards (Rom_13:1 ff.; 1Ti_2:1 f.; 1Pe_2:13 f., 17), that it is the duty of the Christian not to rebel against the existing rulers, but to conjoin obedience to their authority with obedience to God. At the same time, there cannot be a doubt that, although, in accordance with the question, Jesus chooses to direct His reply to the first and not to the second of those two departments of duty (in answer to Klostermann’s note on Mark), the second is to be regarded as the unconditional and absolute standard, not only for the first of the duties here mentioned (comp. Act_5:29), but for every other. Chrysostom observes that: what is rendered to Caesar must not be τὴν εὐσέβειαν παραβλάπτοντα , otherwise it is οὐκέτι Καίσαρος , ἀλλὰ τοῦ διαβόλου φόρος καὶ τέλος . Thus the second part of the precept serves to dispose of any collision among our duties which accidental circumstances might bring about (Rom_13:5). According to de Wette, Jesus, in the first part of His reply, does not refer the matter inquired about to the domain of conscience at all, but treats it as belonging only to the sphere of politics (Luk_12:14), and then adds in the second part: “You can and ought to serve God, in the first place, with your moral and religious dispositions, and should not mix up with His service what belongs to the domain of civil authority.” But such a severance of the two is not in accordance with the context; for the answer would in that case be an answer to an alternative question based on the general thought: is it lawful to be subject to Caesar, or to God only? Whereas the reply of Jesus is: you ought to do both things, you ought to be subject to God and to Caesar as well; the one duty is inseparable from the other! Thus our Lord rises above the alternative, which was based on theocratic notions of a one-sided and degenerate character, to the higher unity of the true theocracy, which demands no revolutions of any kind, and also looks upon the right moral conception of the existing civil rule as necessarily part and parcel of itself (Joh_19:11), and consequently a simple yes or no in reply to the question under consideration is quite impossible.
ἀπόδοτε ] the ordinary expression for paying what it is one’s duty to pay, as in Mat_20:8, Mat_21:41; Rom_13:7.
Mat_22:22. ἐθαύμασαν ] “conspicuo modo ob responsum tutum et verum,” Bengel. Οὐκ ἐπίστευσαν δέ , Euthymius Zigabenus.