“render unto Caesar”

The trap and the answer

Matthew 22:15-22 records the Pharisees and Herodians attempting to trap Jesus with a politically explosive question:

“Tell us, then, what You think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” (v.17, BSB)

A “yes” answer would alienate Jewish nationalists who resented Roman taxation as collaboration with the occupier. A “no” answer would be sedition under Roman law — a capital offence. Either answer destroys Jesus.

Jesus asks for the coin used to pay the tax — a Roman denarius, bearing Caesar’s image and inscription. Then:

“So give back [apodote] to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” (v.21, BSB)

The KJV’s “render unto Caesar” preserves the older English sense; modern translations more often use “give” or “give back.”

The Greek verb

The Greek is apodote (ἀπόδοτε), the imperative of apodidōmi. BDAG s.v. apodidōmi: to give back, return, render, pay. The compound verb is built from apo (back, away from) + didōmi (give). It is the verb used for paying a debt, returning what was borrowed, fulfilling an obligation — not the verb for making a gift from one’s own resources.

The choice of verb matters. Dote (simply “give”) would treat the tax as a free gift to Caesar from the taxpayer’s own resources. Apodote treats it as the return of what already belonged to Caesar. The denarius bears Caesar’s image; the implication of apodote is that you are returning Caesar’s coin to Caesar.

The eikōn observation — an interpretation many readers and scholars make

The Greek word for “image” — both for the image on the coin and for humans made in God’s image — is eikōn (εἰκών). The same word.

• Matthew 22:20 — tinos hē eikōn hautē? — “whose image is this?” (on the coin)
• Genesis 1:27 (LXX) — kat’ eikona theou — “according to the image of God” (humans)

An interpretive tradition many readers and scholars have observed runs as follows: if the coin bears Caesar’s eikōn and is returned to Caesar, then what bears God’s eikōn should be returned to God. Humans, made in God’s image, belong to God in a way that no coin belongs to any earthly ruler. This reading takes the eikōn parallel as deliberate.

The wordplay is genuinely there in the Greek; whether the saying intends the full reframing or only the surface answer about tax obligation is a matter of interpretive judgement. The reading above is what many readers and scholars observe in the text; it is not the only reading the text supports.

What the saying does and does not do

The saying:

• Avoids the political trap by reframing the question
• Acknowledges legitimate political-economic obligations to civil authority
• Asserts that human persons belong to God in a way that supersedes any claim by political power
• Plays on the eikōn connection deliberately

The saying does not:

• Endorse all forms of civil authority unconditionally
• Resolve every conceivable conflict between religious and political duty
• Address modern democratic accountability or specific tax structures

The two-clause formulation gives a structural principle without specifying every application. Different Christian traditions have read it differently when applying it to specific historical situations.