All the council sought for witness against Jesus.
The Council-Jesus before the Jewish Council
The world, in its best moods, exalts justice; and, in its worst moods, defeats it. Everything depends on the mood for the time being. Multitudes on the first day of Holy Week strewed the way with their clothes for their king to ride over; it was their mood. Only five days later a mob, bearing lanterns and torches, sought Him as if He were a thief, and led Him a prisoner over that same highway. The mood had changed. Mob law prevailed.
I. The tribunal. No gathering of star chamber was ever more lawless.
1. The law decreed that no court should sit before sunrise; this trial followed immediately upon the midnight arrest-while Jerusalem was asleep.
2. The law required that anyone accused should have an advocate; here the Nazarene stood alone, with none to question in His behalf.
3. The law demanded that witnesses should be summoned for every prisoner; here no one was called to testify.
4. The judge of that court was Caiaphas, who had already declared the necessity of the death of Jesus, in order that the factions of the people might be harmonized.
5. Like a travesty reads the record: “The chief priests and all the council sought for witness against Jesus to put Him to death.” Their aim was to establish guilt, not to find justice.
6. It was the law that no sentences of death should be passed upon the same day as the trial; yet, in spite of their subterfuge, declaring the sentence of death just after sunrise, it was on the same day, since the Jewish day began at evening.
II. The indictment. Full of flaws. Hopelessly confused. Even the testimony of bribed witnesses was too inconsistent to be of any use. The only seeming ground for a charge was a distortion of a saying in His earlier ministry concerning the destruction of the temple which He called His body, but which they declared was the pride of Jerusalem; but even this was no crime, as even His judges knew. Their case had failed. Their miserable charges were not sustained.
III. The prisoner. The one sinless Person among men. No enemy has ever found a flaw in His pure character. No charge, even of haste or imprudence, has ever been preferred. By His greatness and goodness, He throws all other human attainments into obscurity.
1. The best character is no protection against human hatred. The higher the character the more isolated it stands. The treatment accorded the Master will be meted out to His disciples. Persecution for righteousness’ sake is a natural outcome of being righteous.
2. The best character does not always command friendship in the time of trial. It is not an infallible mark of piety to be always surrounded with friends.
IV. The sentence. Death, that cry of assassins; death, cold and cruel, blanching in a moment the ruddiest face; death, the breaking down of human life; death, the guardian of the cross; this was the word they hissed out-“He is guilty of death.” To beckon such a death the laws of Moses and of the Romans were torn to shreds; mockery clothed itself in ermine; Pilate washed his guilty hands; and priests and rabble shouted themselves hoarse. (David O. Mears.)
The Sanhedrin
The Council of the Jews, commonly called the Sanhedrin, was composed of seventy-one persons. It consisted of three Courts or Houses,-the Sopherim, or Teachers of the Law, the College of the High Priest, and the house of the Elders. The president, or head of the Council, bore the title of Nasi, and was not necessarily the High Priest. In Numbers 11:16, we read that God commanded Moses to call together seventy of the Elders of Israel, and to put his spirit upon them. The Council was composed in like manner of seventy, to represent these Elders, chosen and ordained by Moses, and the seventy-first, the president, represented Moses; but as the Council was summoned by Moses, and not by Aaron, the High Priest was not necessarily the head of it. This president, or Nasi, was also called the Prince of Israel, and must be of the house of David, and the once became for many generations an inheritance of the family of Hillel, which descended from David. The First, or Upper House, was the House of the Lawyers, and it had originally supreme control of life and death. But when the Romans conquered Palestine, and converted Judea into a Roman Province, then this power was taken from them, and all those cases which had been tried by the Court of the Lawyers were heard by the Roman Prater. This House accordingly was practically dissolved; it had nothing to do, the sceptre was taken from it, and its lawgiver was divested of all power. The Second House was that of the Chief Priests; at the head of it sat the High Priest, and it was made up of the heads of the twenty-four priestly families and of the heads of the departments connected with the ministry in the Temple. The members all bore the title of “Chief Priests” (ἀρχιερεῖς). They decided in all spiritual matters, as to faith and heresy. This House remained in full activity after the practical abrogation of the First, and thus the High Priest became the virtual head of the Jewish Council. The Third House was that of the Elders, and was made up of representatives of the great Jewish families and of Rabbis of note. They went by the name of the “Elders,” and continued to sit along with the Second House. (S. Baring Gould, M. A.)