Matthew 10:17. They will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues.
See also Mark 13:9.
1. In addition to the Great Sanhedrim or Council (for a description of which see note on Matt. 26:59, #718) there were councils of an inferior degree. There is some obscurity in connection with their history and construction. They are supposed to have been originated by Moses. See Deuteronomy 16:18. In later times there were two of them in Jerusalem, and one in each town in Palestine. The rabbins say there were twenty-three judges to each of these councils in every place where the population was a hundred and twenty, and three judges where the population was less. Josephus, however, says that there were seven judges to each council, and that each judge had two Levites to assist him.
These councils had power not only to judge civil cases, but also such criminal cases as did not come within the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, or Sanhedrim. In the provinces they at first met in the market-place, but afterward in a room adjoining the synagogue. Some writers suppose that these local provincial councils are identical with the “elders” and “rulers of the synagogue,” so often mentioned in the New Testament. See article “Synagogue,” in KITTO’S Cyclopedia, vol. 3, p. 902 b. See, further, note on Acts 13:15 (#834). The connection in the text between councils and scourging seems to indicate this, unless it can be shown, as some have asserted, that the “rulers of the synagogue” formed a council apart from the smaller Sanhedrim.
2. The discipline of the synagogue was severe. Besides excommunication, (see note on John 9:22, #802) scourging was sometimes practiced. The number of the stripes was limited by law to forty (Deut. 25:3). To prevent the possibility of excess, by mistake in counting, the legal number was reduced by one. Paul was thus beaten five distinct times (2 Cor. 11:24). It is said, however, that in aggravated cases the stripes were laid on with greater severity than usual.
The rabbins reckon a hundred and sixty-eight faults to be punished by scourging; in fact, all punishable faults to which the law has not annexed the penalty of death. “The offender was stripped from his shoulders to his middle, and tied by his arms to a pretty low pillar, that he might lean forward, and the executioner might more easily come at his hack.... It is said that, after the stripping of the criminal, the executioner mounted upon a stone, to have more power over him, and then scourged him both on the back and breasts with thongs made of an ox’s hide, in open court, before the thee of the judges” (Burder, Oriental Customs, No. 949).
Scourging in the synagogues is also referred to in Matthew 23:34. Paul admits that in his days of wickedness he had in this manner maltreated Christians (Acts 22:19).
For an account of Roman scourging, see note on Matthew 27:26 (#724).