Jeremiah 26:17

(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.