Courageously speaking God's message as Jesus did can yield adversaries among those who suppose themselves his spokespersons. The Herodians (v. 16) were unlikely allies with the Pharisees. Pharisees generally cooperated with the aristocracy only when grave national interests were at stake, providing an essential coalition between populist and institutional leadership (as in Jos. Life 21-22). Here the extreme situation presented by Jesus brings the two groups together (Smallwood 1976:164; Bowker 1973:41; compare Mk 3:6). The coalition hopes to catch Jesus coming or going: either he will support taxes to Rome, undercutting his popular messianic support, or he will challenge taxes, thereby aligning with the views that had sparked a disastrous revolt two decades earlier. In the latter case, the Herodians could charge him with being a revolutionary-hence showing that he should be executed, and executed quickly.

Locally minted copper coins omitted the emperor's portrait due to Jerusalem's sensitivities, but because only the imperial mint could legally produce silver and gold coins, Palestine had many foreign coins in circulation. The silver denarius of Tiberius, including a portrait of his head, minted especially at Lyon, circulated there in this period and is probably in view here (Reicke 1974:137). The coin related directly to pagan Roman religion and the imperial cult in the East: one side bore Caesar's image and the words "Tiberius Caesar, son of the Divine Augustus," while the other side referred to the high priest of Roman religion (Ferguson 1987:70-71). Like it or not, Jews had to use this coin; it was the one required for the poll tax in all provinces (Lane 1974:424).