Palestine, or, the Holy Land: From the Earliest Period to the Present Time

by Michael Russell

1. In that they were not established either by election or succession, but elevated to power in an extraordinary manner.

2. In that they refused to take upon them the title and quality of king.

3. In that they levied no taxes upon the people for the maintenance of government.

4. In their manner of living, which was very far from the pomp and ostentation of the regal state.

5. In that they could make no new laws, but governed according to the statutes contained in the Books of Moses.

6. In that the obedience paid to them by the people was voluntary and unforced, being at most no more than consuls and magistrates of free cities.[22]

But it is less difficult to determine what the judges were not than to ascertain with precision the various parts of their complicated office. In war, they led the host of Israel to meet their enemies; and in peace, it is probable they presided in such courts of judicature as might be found necessary for deciding upon intricate points of law, or for hearing appeals from inferior tribunals. Those who went up to Deborah for judgment had, we may presume, brought their causes in the first instance before the judges of their respective cities; and it was only, perhaps, in cases where greater knowledge and a higher authority were required to give satisfaction to the litigants that the chief magistrate of the republic, aided by certain members of the priesthood, was called upon to pronounce a final decision.

It belongs to this part of the subject to mention the provision made by Moses, and established by Joshua, for the due administration of justice throughout the land. "Judges and officers," said the former, "shalt thou make thee in all thy gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee; and they shall judge the people with just judgment. Thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift; for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise and pervert the words of the righteous." To the same purpose Josephus relates, in his account of the last address delivered by Moses to the Hebrew people, that this great legislator gave instructions to appoint seven judges in every city, men who had distinguished themselves by their good conduct and impartial feelings. Let those who judge, he adds, be permitted to determine according as they shall think right, unless any one can show that they have taken bribes to the perversion of justice, or can allege any other accusation against them.[23]

Between the "judges" and the "officers" nominated by the Jewish lawgiver there was no doubt a marked distinction; though from the remote antiquity of the appointment and the obscure commentaries of the rabbinical writers it has become extremely difficult to define the limits of their respective functions. Maimonides asserts, that in every city where the number of householders amounted to a hundred and twenty there was a court consisting of twenty-three judges, who were empowered to determine in almost all cases both civil and criminal. This is unquestionably the same institution which is mentioned by Josephus in the fourth book of his Antiquities, and described by him as being composed of seven judges and fourteen subordinate officers, or assistants, selected from among the Levites; for these, with the president and his deputy, make up the sum of twenty-three specified by the Jewish writers. In smaller towns, the administration of law was intrusted to three judges, whose authority extended to the determination of all questions respecting debt, theft, rights of inheritance, restitution, and compensation. Though they could not inflict capital punishments, they had power to visit minor offences with scourging and fines, according to the nature of the delinquency and the amount of the injury sustained.[24]

Of the former of these judicial establishments, there were two fixed at Jerusalem even during the period that the Sanhedrim of Seventy was invested with the supreme authority over the lives and fortunes of their countrymen, one of which sat in the gate of Shusan, and the other in that of Nicanor. The place where these judges held their audience was, as Cardinal Fleury remarks, the gate of the city; for as the Israelites were all husbandmen who went out in the morning to their work, and did not return till the evening, the gate of the city was the place where the most frequently met; and we must not be astonished to find that the people laboured in the fields and dwelt in the towns. These were not cities like our provincial capitals, which can hardly subsist on what is supplied to them by twenty or thirty leagues of the surrounding soil. They were the habitations for as many labourers as were necessary to cultivate the nearest fields; hence, as the country was very populous, the towns were very thickly scattered. For a similar reason among the Greeks and Romans, the scene of meeting for all matters of business was the market-place, or forum, because they were all merchants.[25] Among the Jews, the judges took their seats immediately after morning prayers, and continued till the end of the sixth hour, or twelve o'clock; and their authority, though not in capital cases, continued to be respected by the Israelites long after Jerusalem was levelled with the ground.[26]