Mark 12:13-17

4. THE QUESTION OF PAYING TAXES 12:13-17

TEXT 12:13-17

And they send unto him certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians, that they might catch him in talk. And when they were come, they say unto him, Master, we know that thou art true, and carest not for any one: for thou regardest not the person of men, but of a truth teachest the way of God: Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not? Shall we give, or shall we not give? But he, knowing their hypocrisy, said unto them, Why tempt ye me? bring me a penny, that I may see it. And they brought it. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? And they said unto him, Caesar'S. And Jesus said unto them, Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God'S. And they marvelled greatly at him.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS 12:13-17

653.

Who sent the Pharisees and Herodians?

654.

Who were the Herodians? Were they friends of the Pharisees? Discuss.

655.

Why desire to catch Jesus in His speech?

656.

What is meant by the use of the word true as in Mark 12:14?

657.

In what sense didn-'t Jesus care for anyone?

658.

Did these enemies of Jesus believe what they said to Him about Him?

659.

Whose law was involved in paying tribute to Caesar? Discuss.

660.

In what sense were these inquirers hypocrites?

661.

Why ask about the inscription on the coin?

662.

Did Jesus recommend paying taxes?

663.

What things belong to Godare they the same things that belong to Caesar? Discuss.

COMMENT

TIME.Tuesday, April 4, A.D. 30, two days after entry into Jerusalem.
PLACE.In the temple, probably in the court of the Gentiles.

PARALLEL ACCOUNTS.Matthew 22:15-22; Luke 20:20-26.

OUTLINE.1. The trap setters, Mark 12:13. Mark 12:2. The trap set, Mark 12:14-15 a, Mark 12:3. Caught in their own trap, Mark 12:15 b - Mark 12:17.

ANALYSIS

I.

THE TRAPPERS, Mark 12:13.

1.

They were officiali.e. sent by others.

2.

Made up of two opposing forces, who now joined together to oppose Jesus.

II.

THE TRAP, Mark 12:14-15 a.

1.

Flattery used as a camouflage.

2.

The trap is a question; shall we pay taxes to usurpers?

III.

THE TRAPPED, Mark 12:15 b - Mark 12:17.

1.

He knew their purpose.

2.

He sprang the trap on them.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

I.

THE TRAPPERS.

Mark 12:13. Although thus foiled in their direct attempt to silence him, they lose no time in aiming at the same end by a more insidious method, all the parties hostile to him coalescing for a moment in a joint and several effort to destroy his popularity and influence, by setting him at variance either with the Roman government or Jewish people. The means employed for this end was a series of entangling questions upon difficult and controverted points, both doctrinal and practical, to which it seemed impossible for him to return any answer that would not commit him in the eyes of some important party. This design is apparent from the coalition of two adverse sects or parties in the first attack, the Pharisees, or bigoted opponents of all heathenish and foreign domination, and the Herodians, or followers of Herod, who sustained him as the instrument and vassal of the Romans. This unnatural alliance between parties diametrically opposite in principle was caused by their common hostility to Christ, whose growing influence was far more dangerous to both than either could be to the other. By combining, too, they seemed to render his escape impossible, as any answer which would satisfy the one side must of course afford a ground of opposition to the other. Of this crafty and unprincipled contrivance, on the part of men whose only bond of union was their hatred of our Lord and their desire to destroy him, it might well be said that their design was to catch him, as a bird is caught in fowling, by a word, i.e. by a perplexing question, or, as some explain it, by an unguarded answer.

II.

THE TRAP.

And they coming say to him, their first words being not a peremptory challenge, as in the preceding case (Mark 11:27), but a flattering address intended to allay suspicion and conceal their real purpose, so as to throw him off his guard and make it easier to entrap him. Master, i.e. Teacher, we know, not necessarily a false profession, since the character here ascribed to Christ was not only true but universally acknowledged. True, i.e. honest, candid, truthful, one who spoke the truth without regard to consequences. Carest for no man, in the Greek a double negative, as usual enforcing the negation. It does not concern thee about no man. The impersonal verb is that employed in Mark 4:38, and there explained. What they here ascribe to him is not indifference or unconcern as to the welfare of others, but independence of their influence and authority, as motives for suppressing an unwelcome truth. The flattery here lies, not in the falsehood or extravagance of the description, but in the honesty with which they seem to comprehend themselves among those for whom he did not care in the sense above explained. As if they had said, we come to you not only as a wise and famous teacher, but because we know that you will tell us to our faces what you think, without considering how it will affect us. Regardest not the person, literally dost not look into the face (or at the outward appearance) of men, i.e. art not influenced by any difference of rank, position, wealth, or power, a regard to which in the administration of justice was forbidden in the law of Moses as respect of persons or judicial partiality. (See Leviticus 19:15, Deuteronomy 1:17; Deuteronomy 16:19, and compare Proverbs 24:23; Proverbs 28:21.) The same thing is here denied of Christ, not as a judge, but as a teacher. In truth or of a truth, i.e. truly, really, sincerely, without any such reserves or personal regards as those just mentioned. Such adulation has blinded the eyes and warped the judgment of its thousands and its tens of thousands among human sages, and especially of those who glory in their insusceptibility of flattery. It is not surprising, therefore, that these crafty casuists and politicians, who regarded Jesus as a mere man, though an eminently wise and good one, should have hoped to find him as susceptible of flattery as others. Having thus prepared the way for their ensuing question, they at length propound it, in a very categorical and simple form. Is it lawful, is it right, not in itself or in the abstract, but for us as members of the chosen people, subjects of a theocracy, to give tribute, literally census, one of the Latin words embedded in the Greek of Mark, strictly meaning an enrollment of the people and assessment of their property with a view to taxation (compare Luke 2:1-5), but also used in the secondary sense of the tax itself, here distinguished as a Roman not a Jewish impost by the Latin word applied to it and by the express mention of the taxing power, Cesar, a surname of the Julian family at Rome, inherited from Julius Caesar by his grand nephew and adopted son, Octavius or Augustus, the first emperor of Rome, was afterwards transmitted through the line of his successors, not only those who were connected with his family, but those exalted by a popular or military nomination, It is here applied abstractly to the office, or rather to the actual incumbent, Tiberius, the stepson and successor of Augustus, who reigned from the 14th to the 37th year of the Christian era. It is not however in his personal capacity, but as the representative of Roman power, that he is here mentioned. Or not? an artful presentation of the question as requiring a direct and categorical solution, without qualifications or distinctions, but as we say in English, Yea or nay?

Mark 12:15 a. May we give, or may we not give? the form of the Greek verb being not future but subjunctive and indefinite. It is therefore really another form of the preceding question, not a second one consequent upon it, as the English version seems to intimate. 1. Is it lawful? 2. Shall we do it? for a thing may be lawful and yet not expedient or binding. (Compare 1 Corinthians 6:12; 1 Corinthians 10:23). But in Greek no such distinction is expressed or suggested, but a simple repetition of the same inquiry in a different and more laconic form, thus rendering it still more categorical and peremptory, as admitting of no answer but a simple affirmation or negation. While the preamble to the question, therefore, was adapted to conciliate and prepossess an ordinary wise man, the question itself was so framed as almost to extort a categorical and therefore compromising answer. But he with whom they had to deal saw not only through their question but themselves, and shaped his course accordingly, so as at one stroke to solve the difficulty and defeat their malice.

III.

THE TRAPPED.

Mark 12:15 b. Knowing (or according to some copies, seeing) their hypocrisy, the part which they were acting, but here from the connection necessarily suggesting the idea of dissimulation, false pretenses, which we commonly attach to the derivative in English. Why tempt ye me? not why entice me into sin, which is the ordinary sense of tempting (see Mark 1:13), but why do you try me, prove me, put me to the test, which is its primary and proper import. (See Mark 8:11; Mark 10:2.) Then, instead of answering in thesi, as they evidently wished and expected, he gives a striking popularity and vividness to what he is about to say, by addressing it not only to the ears but to the eyes of those about him. Bring me a penny, a denarius, another of Mark's Latin words, denoting a silver coin in common circulation since the Roman conquest, worth from fifteen to seventeen cents of our money, but here mentioned not with any reference whatever to its value, but as the tribute money (coin of the census or taxation) as it is expressed in Matthew (Matthew 22:19.) That I may see (it), is almost sarcastic, for though he did desire and intend to see it, yet the words, if seriously understood, seem to imply that he had never done so, and expected to derive some information from an inspection of the coin itself. But this was no doubt understood by all about him as a sort of grave rebuking irony, intended to disclose his knowledge of their secret motives, and his scorn of their hypocrisy, in raising such an abstract question on a point decided by their every-day transactions in the way of business. As if he had said; -What! Are you required to pay taxes to the Romans? And in what coin? Let me see one-'thus attracting the attention of all present to the question, and preparing them to understand his memorable answer.

Mark 12:16. And they (either those who put the question or some others present) brought (it). We may now conceive of him as holding the denarius in his hand, or displaying it to those around, as if it had been something new, thus still more exciting curiosity and gradually opening the way for the solution of the difficulty which had been suggested. Whose is this image and inscription? referring to the well-known head and title of the emperor by which the money was authenticated as a legal tender. As if he had continued in the same tone as before. -See this money has a man's head and a man's name stamped upon it; what does this mean? who is this, here represented both in words and figures?-' The inevitable answer, Cesar'S, may to some have suggested, at least vaguely and obscurely, the solution just about to be expressed in words, while others, perhaps most, still continued in suspense, until the words were uttered.

Mark 12:17. The first words of this verse are not to be slurred over as mere expletives or words of course, but read with great deliberation and strong emphasis. And Jesus (having thus directed attention to the captious and unreasonable nature of the question, not evading it, but) answering (at last) said unto them, i.e. directly to his tempters, as a solution of their abstract question, but at the same time through them and as it were over their heads to the surrounding masses, as a practical direction or a rule of duty. Render (return, pay back) the (things) of Cesar to Cesar, and the (things) of God to God, a collocation more emphatic (though identical in meaning) than the one in the translation, as it places last in either clause, not the thing to be paid but the person to receive it. Some attach to the Greek verb the diluted sense of simply giving out or paying, but the strong sense of paying back, restoring, correctly though not clearly enough given in our version, is not only permitted by the etymology and favoured by the usage of the word (compare Matthew 5:26; Matthew 5:33; Matthew 6:4; Matthew 6:18; Matthew 6:25; Matthew 20:8, Luke 4:20; Luke 4:9; Luke 4:42; Luke 19:8, Romans 12:17; Romans 13:7, 1 Thessalonians 5:15, 1 Peter 3:9), but required by the whole connection and essential to the full force of our Saviour's answer. Of the numerous specific senses put upon that answer there are probably but two exegetically possible and yet essentially unlike. The first of these supposes Christ to represent the two things as entirely distinct and independent of each other, belonging to excentric incommensurable spheres, and therefore not to be reduced to any common principle or rule. As if he had said, Pay your taxes and perform your religious duties, but do not mix the two together or attempt to bring them either into conflict or agreement; for they really belong to different worlds or systems, and have nothing common or alike by which they can even be compared. This paradoxical interpretation would deserve no notice had it not been gravely urged by one of the most celebrated modern German writers. The other exegetical hypothesis supposes Christ to say precisely the opposite of this, to wit, that the two duties are in perfect harmony and rest on one and the same principle. Within this general hypothesis, however, there are several gradations or distinct forms of opinion as to the principle here laid down. Without enumerating all these, it will be sufficient to state two, the lowest and the highest, which can be reduced to this class. The former understands our Lord as rather distinguishing the two obligations, but affirming their consistency and equal obligation, when they are not in collision. The latter understands him as identifying both as parts of one and the same system, as if he had said, your civil duties are but parts of your religious duties. By rendering to Cesar what is his you render unto God what is his. But the question still remains, what doctrine did he teach as to the Roman domination and the duty of the Jews while under it? The most approved and prevalent opinion is that in accordance with the maxim of Maimonides and other rabbis, he regards the circulation of the coin of any sovereign as a practical proof that his sovereignty not only exists but is submitted to. So long as the Jews submitted to the Romans and enjoyed their protection they were not only authorized but bound to pay for the advantage. Others make the prominent idea that of penal visitation, or subjection to the Romans as a punishment of sin. The other precept, render unto God, etc., is understood according to these different hypotheses as meaning either, give your souls or yourselves (which bear his image) back to him by faithful service or by true repentance, as you give back to the emperor in tribute the coin which he circulates among you. All these constructions seem to me too artificial, and the only satisfactory one that which understands our Lord as first suggesting by the very aspect of the coin that they were under obligations to the civil power, and then reminding them that till these came in conflict with religious obligations they were no less binding. As if he had said, -Yes, if you are actually under Roman domination, yet allowed to serve God in the way of his appointment, and indeed protected in that service, you are bound to pay back what you thus receive, but no such obligations can destroy those which you owe to God himself, or suspend them when they come in competition. In a word, repay to Cesar what he gives you, and to God the infinitely greater gifts which you receive from him-'. (J. A. Alexander)

FACT QUESTIONS 12:13-17

744.

What was meant by the expression It does not concern thee about no man?

745.

In what sense did our Lord look into the face of man?

746.

What immediate advantage was hoped for in the use of flattery?

747.

Just what was meant by the word tribute? How is the word Caesar used?

748.

Are there two questionsone in Mark 12:14 and another in Mark 12:15? Explain.

749.

What kind of an answer did these men want? Why?

750.

Just what was the point of hypocrisy, i.e. in what were they being hypocritical?

751.

Why ask to see the coin? Why ask about the superscription?

752.

To whom did Jesus address His answer? Why?

753.

Where is the emphasis? On the thing to be paid, or the person to receive it?

754.

State the two possible interpretations of this expression i.e. general ones.

755.

Which of the gradations of the above two views is to be preferred? Why?

756.

What did Jesus teach about the duty of the Jews to Roman domination?; to God?