Jeremiah 26:17

Certain of the elders of the land. — The word is probably to be taken rather in the literal than in an official sense — or, if officially, then as including the literal meaning also. The elders speaking in the time of Jehoiakim (cir. B.C. 608) remembered the tradition of what had passed, a century or so before, in the reign of Hezekiah (B.C. 726-698), and could appeal to it as a precedent in favour of the prophet. The word for “assembly” (elsewhere rendered “congregation”) corresponds to the Ecclesia of a Greek city.