Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 4:5

"And it came to pass on the morrow, that their rulers and elders and scribes were gathered together in Jerusalem;" — Acts 4:5 (ASV)

Though the Sadducees had among them the nation’s titular rulers, they were actually a minority party and could govern only through the Sanhedrin. Thus on the next day, this seventy-member group, composed of “the rulers” or “the high priests” (cf. 23:5), the “elders,” and the “teachers of the law” (most of whom were Pharisees) came together. The Sanhedrin (“council”; GK 5284) was the senate and supreme court of the nation, which had jurisdiction in all noncapital cases—though it also advised the Roman governors in capital cases—and in one case, namely, that of Gentiles trespassing beyond the posted barriers into the inner courts of the temple, could on its own sentence even a Roman citizen to death . The high priest was president of the Sanhedrin. It met in a hall adjoining the southwest part of the temple area.