With deep emotion Helon entered the hall; it was one of the largest and most splendid of all which the courts of the temple contained. It lay partly in the court of the Priests and partly in that of Israel, and was called also Gazith, because it was paved with marble. There, was an entrance from both courts, one called the Holy, the other the Common. In this all the courses of the priests were exchanged, and here the great council, or Sanhedrim, held its sittings.
The Sanhedrim consisted of seventy-one persons, partly priests, partly Levites, partly elders. In extraordinary cases the elders from all the tribes were convoked, who then formed the great congregation. The high-priest occupied the place of president, and was seated at the western end; he bore the title of Nashi, or Chief. On his right sat the Ab-beth-din, Father of the Council, probably the most aged man among the elders, and on his left the Wise Man, probably the most experienced among the doctors of the law. The remaining sixty-eight sat in a half circle, on either side, with a secretary at the end of each row. As the three chief persons belonged respectively to the sacerdotal order, to the body of the citizens, and the profession of the law, so the remaining members were made up of these three elements. The twenty-four courses of the priests were represented here by their heads, the elders were a deputation from the chiefs of families and of houses; the doctors of the law were the most learned of the Levites. The whole assembly was seated, with crossed feet, on cushions or carpets. The Sanhedrim was the supreme judicial and administrative court in Israel; every thing relating to the service of God, foreign relations, and matters of life and death, came under its cognizance. It was further their business to scrutinize every son of Aaron, who wished to enter as a priest into the service of Jehovah.
Elisama entered the hall attended by Helon. He announced the name of the young man and of his father, and produced extracts from the registers, which ascertained the legitimacy of his birth. The tribe of Levi, when numbered in the wilderness, contained 22,000 males above a month old,[53] and 8580 males between thirty and fifty;[54] they were all devoted to the service of Jehovah; but only a single family, that of Aaron, had the privilege of furnishing priests for the altar; the rest of the Levites were only the servants of the priests.[55] In David’s time the number of the Levites from twenty years and upwards was 38,000;[56] that of the priests perhaps not 6000. Aaron had four sons, two of whom were punished with an early death in the wilderness, for their presumption: the other two, Eleazar and Ithamar, had such a numerous posterity, that these were divided into sixteen and eight, or twenty-four courses or families.[57] As only four were found among those who returned from the captivity, these were divided into the original number of twenty-four, which bore the name of the ancestor of each family.[58] Helon, by his father’s side, belonged to the course of Malchia, which was the fifth; and by the mother’s to that of Abia, which was the eighth.