Verse 4 Chief priests. The priests were divided into twenty-four classes; the leaders of these classes, and perhaps some others of particular distinction, were called chief priests. There was but one high priest.--Scribes; a class of men learned in theology and in the law, and often employed as writers. Of the chief priests and scribes, there was composed a council of seventy-two men, called the Sanhedrim which was the great council of the Jewish nation.--Where Christ should be born. Herod was a Jew, and a believer in the Old Testament Scriptures; and he wished that those who were best acquainted with the subject, should inform him where, according to the divine predictions, the Messiah should appear. His conduct, in this instance, was not, therefore, an ordinary case of political cruelty towards a human rival, but a high-handed and deliberate act of hostility against the of counsels of God. He calls upon the great religious tribunal of the nation to consult the sacred records, and inform him, with official solemnity, what God intended to do, in order that he might a adopt effectual measures, by means of violence and murder, to prevent its being done. That a man near seventy years of age and just ready to descend into the grave, should deliberately set himself at work to oppose by open violence, designs which he himself recognized as divine, and which had stood so recorded for seven hundred years, shows to what an extent human guilt and infatuation may sometimes proceed.