COURTS, JUDICIAL. There was no precise term for “court of law” in the OT (although ḥāṩēr occurs with great frequency for the court of the Tabernacle or Temple), at least in the sense of a specific building in which judicial proceedings were conducted. The reason for this was that cases at law were normally heard out in the open, generally in the open square near a city gate. There seems to be only one exception to this in the Heb. Scriptures (1 Kings 7:7), which states that Solomon “made the porch of judgment where he was to judge, even the porch of judgment”—which would be the nearest OT equivalent to a law court in the sense of a building. It would be natural for Solomon to erect an imposing structure of this sort for the hearing of appeals from the lower courts or for the handling of cases of major importance; his royal neighbors in Egypt and Mesopotamia maintained special courthouses or audience halls for the purpose. Apart from this reference, court proceedings were held normally in the forum or market square which faced th principal gate of the city. The first definite reference to this in the OT is found in Genesis 19:1 and states that “Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom” when he noticed the two angelic visitors whom he invited to his home; v. 9 quotes the nocturnal rioters as complaining that an outsider like Lot “will needs be a judge” (ASV)—indicating that after the prestige of Abraham’s victory of the Mesopotamian invaders, his nephew had been officially promoted to judicial position. Later allusions to the city gate as the place for public tribunals are Deuteronomy 16:18, “Judges and officers—šōṭerīm—you shall appoint in all your towns...and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment”; 21:19 (where the “elders” of the city are apparently charged with judging the case of a rebellious son); and 25:7 (where a complaint against a non-compliant levir is brought against him by his brother’s widow “to the gate to the elders”). The “officers” associated with the judges (in Deut 16:18 above) appear to have been bailiffs who insured the appearance of litigants and witnesses at the court sessions; at least their responsibilities as assistant taskmasters or foremen in Egypt (Exod 5:6, 10, 14, 15, 19) and as marshals for military forces (Josh 1:10; 3:2) would suggest this as their function in the judicial setting. (On the other hand, they may have functioned as court clerks, since šāṭar, as one knows from the Akkad. cognate, meant “to write.”)

In the earliest stage of the Exodus migration Moses had the responsibility of holding court sessions in the Israelite camp, along with all of his executive and military duties. At the advice of his father-in-law Jethro (Exod 18:17-26) Moses delegated to an ascending series of petty and appellate judges (who are called “heads” or “rulers” over squads of ten soldiers, captains or lieutenants over larger units) to hear all original cases. Only the more difficult problems for which there was no clear precedent were to be referred to Moses as the court of final appeal. During the period of the Judges it was apparently Deborah who figured prominently as a jurist, holding court sessions under her palm tree (Judg 4:5). The other national leaders (who bore the title of šōpetīm, “judges”) evidently included court hearings with their other responsibilities as executives and military commanders. This function was taken over by the king after the Heb. monarchy was instituted; David maintained an “appellate court” for his entire kingdom (2 Sam 15:2), and Solomon as well (1 Kings 3:9), even before the erection of his aforementioned hall of justice. 1 Chronicles 23:4 states that David appointed 6,000 of the Levites as officers and judges to serve in the lower courts (see also 26:29). By the time of Jehoshaphat (2 Chron 19:5-8) it became necessary to enlarge even the central tribunal at Jerusalem into a larger complex consisting of priests, Levites and heads of clans. Perhaps it was from this measure that the later Sanhedrin, or Council of Seventy, developed (although there is no specific mention of it until Hel. times), which functioned under the presidency of the high priest.

By NT times there had intervened several centuries of Gr. influence and example, and it became more usual to hold court hearings inside of a building constructed as a courthouse. In Gr. cities like Philippi, criminal cases could be tried in the open, in the agora or “market-place” (likewise the unsuccessful prosecution of Paul in Corinth before Gallio’s bema, Acts 18:12-17), and indeed the court sessions or days for judicial business were known as agoraioi (at Ephesus, Acts 19:38). Another distinctive feature of NT times was the activity of lawyers. These nomikoi like the order of scribes (to which they themselves may have belonged) were careful students of the Torah, but also of the “traditions of the elders,” and could be relied upon to assist the judges with any interpretation or precedent that had previously arisen in Jewish history. The “teachers of the Law” with whom the boy Jesus consulted (Luke 2:46) were presumably equivalent to law school professors who trained these nomikoi. Under the Rom. government the Jews of Pal. were permitted to adjudicate their own civil cases, and even their criminal cases which did not involve the death penalty. But the Sanhedrin itself was not legally competent to execute capital punishment on Jesus (John 18:31, 32), and the later episode when Stephen was stoned (Acts 7:57f.) may have taken place in the reign of Herod Agrippa I, when there was no direct Rom. authority present. Where the rights of Rom. citizens were concerned, they had a right to be heard before a Rom. court, presided over by the procurator (as Paul before Felix and Festus), and even to appeal from that tribunal to the court of the emperor at Rome (Acts 25:11, 12).

Bibliography L. Köhler, “Der Hebräische Mensch” (1953), esp. 143-171, “Die hebräische Rechtsgemeinde”; J. van der Ploeg, “Les šōṭerim d’Israél” in Oudtestamentische Studien, X (1954), 185-196; R. de Vaux, “Ancient Israel” (1961), ch. 10.