Senate

The "senate" or "council of elders" (Greek gerousia) appears in Acts 5:21 when the high priest and Sanhedrin "called together the council and all the senate of the children of Israel" to deal with the apostles. Whether this refers to a body distinct from the Sanhedrin or simply a fuller, more formal convening of the same council is debated. The Sanhedrin itself was constituted as a council of seventy elders patterned on Moses' appointment of seventy elders (Num. 11:16–17), making it inherently a senate-like body. In the OT, Israel's governing elders formed a consultative council in matters of national importance (Ex. 24:1; Num. 11:16), and the continuity of this institutional form into Second Temple Judaism is reflected in the NT usage.