Matius 13:32

13:32 It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest garden plant and becomes a tree, ¹  so that the wild birds ²  come and nest in its branches.” ³ 

Matius 17:24

The Temple Tax

17:24 After ⁴  they arrived in Capernaum, ⁵  the collectors of the temple tax ⁶  came to Peter and said, “Your teacher pays the double drachma tax, doesn’t he?”

[13:32]  ¹ sn This is rhetorical hyperbole, since technically a mustard plant is not a tree. This could refer to one of two types of mustard plant popular in Palestine and would be either ten or twenty-five ft (3 or 7.5 m) tall.

[13:32]  ² tn Grk “the birds of the sky” or “the birds of the heaven”; the Greek word οὐρανός (ouranos) may be translated either “sky” or “heaven,” depending on the context. The idiomatic expression “birds of the sky” refers to wild birds as opposed to domesticated fowl (cf. BDAG 809 s.v. πετεινόν).

[13:32]  ³ sn The point of the parable seems to be that while the kingdom of God may appear to have insignificant and unnoticeable beginnings (i.e., in the ministry of Jesus), it will someday (i.e., at the second advent) be great and quite expansive. The kingdom, however, is not to be equated with the church, but rather the church is an expression of the kingdom. Also, there is important OT background in the image of the mustard seed that grew and became a tree: Ezek 17:22-24 pictures the reemergence of the Davidic house where people can find calm and shelter. Like the mustard seed, it would start out small but grow to significant size.

[17:24]  ⁴ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[17:24]  ⁵ map For location see Map1 D2; Map2 C3; Map3 B2.

[17:24]  ⁶ tn Grk “Collectors of the double drachma.” This is a case of metonymy, where the coin formerly used to pay the tax (the double drachma coin, or δίδραχμον [didracmon]) was put for the tax itself (cf. BDAG 241 s.v.). Even though this coin was no longer in circulation in NT times and other coins were used to pay the tax, the name for the coin was still used to refer to the tax itself.

[17:24]  sn The temple tax refers to the half-shekel tax paid annually by male Jews to support the temple (Exod 30:13-16).