Luke 20:26

θαυμάσαντες. Comp. Luke 2:47. They thought that escape was impossible for Him; and yet He instantly shatters their deeply-laid plot to pieces by shewing that they—Pharisees and Herodians alike—had decided the question already (according to their own rule “He whose coin is current is king of the land”), so that there is no need for Him to give any opinion about it. The point was this,—their national acceptance of Caesar’s coinage was an admission of Caesar’s right. Tribute to them was no longer an offering, but a due; not a voluntary gift, but a political necessity. The very word He used was decisive. They had asked “Is it lawful to give (δοῦναι)?” He answers, ‘Give back’ (ἀπόδοτε). By using these coins they all alike admitted that ‘they had no king but Caesar.’ The Christians understood the principle perfectly (1 Peter 2:13-14) as the ancient Jews had done (Jeremiah 27:4-8). Yet these hypocrites dared to shout three days afterwards that Jesus ‘had forbidden to give tribute to Caesar’!