According to Exodus 30:13 (see also Exodus 38:26; 2 Chronicles 24:6, 2 Chronicles 24:9), adult male Israelites older than nineteen years of age registered in the census had to pay a half-shekel (two drachmas) annually for the temple. The collection of this tax began in the area outside Jerusalem on the 15th of Adar (March) and finished ten days later in the capital, just before Passover. After the Romans destroyed the temple, they collected the tax for the temple of Jupiter in Rome. A two-drachma coin was worth about two days’ wages.
According to Exodus 30:13 (see also Exodus 38:26; 2 Chronicles 24:6, 2 Chronicles 24:9), all adult male Israelites (those older than nineteen years of age) who were registered in the census had to pay a half-shekel—that is, two drachma—annually as temple tax. The collection of this special tax began in the countryside outside Jerusalem on the 15th of Adar (March) and concluded ten days later in the capital, just before the Passover festival. After the destruction of the temple, the Romans actually continued collecting it for the temple of Jupiter in Rome. A didrachma (two-drachma coin) was roughly the equivalent of two days’ wages, and a Roman denarius was equal to a Greek drachma (Matthew 20:2, Matthew 20:9).1
24 When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax went up to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the tax?”