Riches in Fishes?

Mammon in salmon? In Matthew 17:24-27, Jesus tells Peter to go “cast a fishhook” on a boat and that in the first fish’s mouth there will be a tetradrachma (4-drachma or stater) coin, the equivalent of about four days’ wages, for them both to pay the temple tax.

In Luke 5:1-10, Jesus tells Peter and the other fishermen to move the boat to another location and cast the net one more time even though it had been previously fruitless. They do it, and are blessed with more fish than they can handle, ripping their net.

Similarly, in John 21:4-11, Jesus tells the fishermen and Peter to cast the net on the other side of the boat. When they do, they are blessed with more fish than they can handle, but without the net ripping this time.

Lessons on Matthew 17:24-27:

• Instructions to do a task Peter was already thoroughly, routinely familiar with.
• It was the first fish caught, not particularly hard work.
• The coin paid for not just Jesus but for Peter as well. Thus, Peter financially benefited from just one fish.

Lessons from the Luke and John narratives:

• Instructions to do a task they were already thoroughly, routinely familiar with, but to do it again per his instructions.
• They were financially blessed with more than they could handle, but not enough to make them rich.

So, in all cases, instructions were given that were not hard and did not require any training, they just required humility. Financial blessings followed, but not enough to make them rich.

This then adds context to John’s assurance that “for this is what the love of God means, that we observe his commandments; and yet his commandments are not burdensome.”—1 John 5:3; see also Deuteronomy 30:11.

Fishy Miracle in Matthew?

Robertson’s Word Pictures of the New Testament alerts us to the fact that

Some try to get rid of the miracle by calling it a proverb or by saying that Jesus only meant for Peter to sell the fish and thus get the money, a species of nervous anxiety to relieve Christ and the Gospel of Matthew from the miraculous. “All the attempts have been in vain which were made by the older Rationalism to put a non-miraculous meaning into these words” (B. Weiss). It is not stated that Peter actually caught such a fish though that is the natural implication.

The last statement is humorous, for the absence in the narrative of Peter following Jesus’ instructions to retrieve a valuable tetradrachma to pay the temple tax is most conspicuous!

What may be used as a basis for questioning its historicity is this note from The Jewish Annotated New Testament regarding “fish”: “Rabbinic literature speaks of fish containing riches (b. Shabb. 15a).” (Shabb. is the Talmudic tractate Shabbat, and b. abbreviates Babylonian, as in the Babylonian Talmud.) However, the citation to 15a seems to be a mistake for 119a:5. 15a does not mention fish, but 119a:5 relates this parable:

The gentile went and sold all of his property, and with the money he received he bought a pearl, and he placed it in his hat. When he was crossing a river in a ferry, the wind blew his hat and cast it into the water, and a fish swallowed it. The fish was caught and removed from the water and it was brought to shore adjacent to nightfall on Shabbat eve. [The fisherman then ignorantly sells the fish to a Jew named Yosef.] He ripped the fish open and found a pearl inside it. He sold it for thirteen vessels filled with golden dinars.

Then this verse appears to give the moral of the story by saying: “One who lends to Shabbat, Shabbat repays him.”^[1]

With this background in mind, an example of trying to remove the miraculous from Matthew 17:27 is this next more-recent quote, which employs the above tractate Shabbat to support its skepticism (note though it uses the same erroneous reference to 15a from the earlier Jewish Annotated NT):

Jesus’s instruction for Peter to go fishing is a delicious snippet of ancient Hebrew lore that doesn’t translate well into modern English. It is one part hyperbole, one part Jewish wisdom saying, and several parts Jesus of Nazareth. Logic, both modern and ancient, tells us that the fish wouldn’t have a coin in its mouth; nor would the market value of one fish be enough to pay the Temple tax for two men. Rabbinic literature (b. Shabb. 15a) pairs fish with riches. So, Jesus’s point was probably a simple observation that an afternoon of fishing was more valuable than an afternoon of arguing with tax collectors.^[2]

First, there is an apparent failure to fact-check the Jewish Annotated NT reference to 15a when 119a:5 was evidently meant. Secondly, the statement that “logic, both modern and ancient, tells us that the fish wouldn’t have a coin in its mouth” is incorrect based on the following notes from the following study Bibles:

The ESV Archeology Study Bible states:

The only types of fish native to the Sea of Galilee that can be caught by a baited hook are the barbel (a kind of carp) and the hafafi, both of which feed on mollusks, snails, and sardines at the bottom of the lake. It is likely that either one of these picked up the shekel coin at the bottom of the sea that Peter presumably harvested for his and Jesus’ temple tax. Fishing hooks dating back to the first century AD have been found at Bethsaida.

And the HCSB Study Bible pointedly adds: “Several ancient texts refer to fishermen discovering valuable items inside fish.” So the discovery of a valuable coin in a fish is not a “fish story.” Thus, it may not have had to be a counterfeit either, just a stater coin that someone had previously lost to the unforgiving waves—but even if it was divinely counterfeited, it would hardly disrupt the local economy that was doomed for destruction in 70 CE anyway. (By way of comparison, Elijah was miraculously provided with meat, bread, and even a jug of water at one point.—1 Kings 17:2-7, 19:5, 6)

Thus, we have both the means for a fish to be able to have a coin in its mouth, and the historical backing for fish swallowing precious items. We also have the physical artifacts of first-century Palestinian fishhooks—removing any potential of doubt for an anachronism on Jesus’ lips.

Lastly, it seems for this reference to the Babylonian Talmud to have any weight, one would have to prove its popularity in first-century Palestine. Barring that, this claim of removing the miraculous should not be swallowed hook, line and sinker.^[3]

Footnotes:
^[1] Sefaria: https://www.sefaria.org/Shabbat.119a?ven=William_Davidson_Edition_-_English&lang=bi
^[2] Jack W. Page Jr. Y’All Come: An Invitation to G-D’S Neighborhood Issued by a Jew from Nazareth (under The Temple, Taxes, and Caesar) (WestBow Press, Dec 19, 2016).
^[3] As one scholar stated: “The appearance of a tradition even in an authoritative work, such as the Babylonian Talmud, does not guarantee that it was universally excepted among the Sages, much less among contemporary Jews in general.”—Darrell D. Hannah, Michael and Christ: Michael Tradition and Angel Christology in Early Christianity, (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, Dec 31, 1999), 94.

Credits:

• Opening picture from Jesus—The Way, the Truth, the Life page 148.

See also:

• “Love of God” (1 John 5:3)—Some Comments, by Edgar Foster.
  fosterheologicalreflections.blogspot.com/2019/09/love-of-god-1-john-53-some-comments.html.