tion for the work, which within a few months they would be left
to carry on without His bodily companionship. They had solemnly
testified that they knew Him to be the Christ; to them therefore He
could impart much that the people in general were wholly unprepared to
receive. The particular theme of His special and advanced instruction to
the Twelve was that of His approaching death and resurrection; and this
was dwelt upon again and again, for they were slow or unwilling to
comprehend.

"Let these sayings sink down into your ears" was His forceful prelude on
this occasion, in Galilee. Then followed the reiterated prediction,
spoken in part in the present tense as though already begun in
fulfilment: "The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they
shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third
day." We read with some surprize that the apostles still failed to
understand. Luke's comment is: "But they understood not this saying, and
it was hid from them, that they perceived it not: and they feared to ask
him of that saying." The thought of what the Lord's words might mean,
even in its faintest outline, was terrifying to those devoted men; and
their failure to comprehend was in part due to the fact that the human
mind is loath to search deeply into anything it desires not to believe.

THE TRIBUTE MONEY--SUPPLIED BY A MIRACLE.[806]

Jesus and His followers were again in Capernaum. There Peter was
approached by a collector of the temple tax, who asked: "Doth not your
Master pay tribute?"[807] Peter answered "Yes." It is interesting to
find that the inquiry was made of Peter and not directly of Jesus; this
circumstance may be indicative of the respect in which the Lord was held
by the people at large, and may suggest the possibility of doubt in the
collector's mind as to whether Jesus was amenable to the tax, since
priests and rabbis generally claimed exemption.

The annual capitation tax here referred to amounted to half a shekel or
a didrachm, corresponding to about thirty-three cents in our money; and
this had been required of every male adult in Israel since the days of
the exodus; though, during the period of captivity the requirement had
been modified.[808] This tribute, as prescribed through Moses, was
originally known as "atonement money," and its payment was in the nature
of a sacrifice to accompany supplication for ransom from the effects of
individual sin. At the time of Christ