Congregation, Assembly

VIEW:49 DATA:01-04-2020

CONGREGATION, ASSEMBLY.—In AV [Note: Authorized Version.] these terms are both employed to render either of the two important Heb. words ‘çdhah and qâhâl, with a decided preference, however, in favour of ‘congregation’ for the former, and ‘assembly’ for the latter. In RV [Note: Revised Version.] , as we read in the Revisers’ preface, an effort has been made to secure greater uniformity on these lines. Of the two, qâhâl is the more widely distributed, although neither is frequent in pre-exilic literature; ‘çdhah, which is not used in the prophetic or Deuteronomic sources of the Pentateuch, is found at least 115 times in the Priests’ Code alone, where it denotes the theocratic community of Israel as a whole, the church-nation in its relation to J″ [Note: Jahweh.] . The full designation, as found in Num_1:2 and a score of times elsewhere, is ‘(the sum of) all the congregation of the children of Israel,’ which is the equivalent of the Deuteronomic phrase ‘all the assembly (qâhâl) of Israel’ (Deu_31:30, RV [Note: Revised Version.] and AV [Note: Authorized Version.] ‘congregation’). In the older and more secular writers the same idea would have been expressed by ‘the sum of the people’ of Israel, as in 2Sa_24:2.
It is extremely doubtful if there is any valid ground for the attempts to find a distinction between the two expressions ‘congregation’ and ‘assembly,’ even within P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] itself, as if ‘assembly’ represented either ‘picked members of the congregation’ (EBi [Note: Encyclopædia Biblica.] col. 345), or the latter in its capacity as an assembly of worshippers. For in one and the same verse P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] employs ‘congregation’ and ‘assembly’ as synonymous terms, as in Lev_4:13, Num_16:3 RV [Note: Revised Version.] , and in the priestly redaction of Jdg_20:1 f., the whole body of the people being intended in every case. The only two passages which seem to imply that the ‘assembly’ was a limited section of the ‘congregation,’ viz. Exo_12:6, Num_14:5 ‘all the assembly of the congregation,’ etc., clearly show conflate readings (cf. LXX [Note: Septuagint.] .). What difference, finally, can be detected between ‘the assembly of J″ [Note: Jahweh.] ’ of Num_16:3; Num_20:4 (cf. Deu_23:3-4) and ‘the congregation of J″ [Note: Jahweh.] ’ of Deu_27:17; Deu_31:16—all P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] passages?
In the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] ’çdhah is in most cases rendered by synagôgç, qâhâl by ecclçsia, both being used, according to Schürer, without essential distinction to signify the religious community of Israel, in this agreeing, as has been argued above, with the original and with our AV [Note: Authorized Version.] . The subsequent history of these terms in the Jewish and early Christian Churches is of considerable interest. Later Judaism, as Schürer has shown, began to distinguish between synagôgç and ecclçsia in the direction of applying the former in an empirical, the latter in an ideal, sense, the one to signify the religious community in a particular place, the other ‘the community of those called by God to salvation,’ the ideal Israel. This Jewish usage explains how, while synagôgç is occasionally found in early Patristric literature in the sense of ‘the Christian congregation,’ its rival finally gained the day. The Christian synagogue became ‘the Church,’ while the Jewish Church remains ‘the synagogue’ (see under Church, Synagoque).
The expression solemn assembly, in which ‘solemn’ has its etymological, but now obsolete, sense of ‘stated,’ ‘appointed’ (lit. ‘yearly,’ sollennis), represents a third Heb. word applicable originally to any religious gathering (Amo_5:21, Isa_1:13, 2Ki_10:20), but afterwards limited to those appointed for the seventh day of the Feast of Unleavened Cakes (Mazzoth, Deu_16:8), and the eighth of the Feast of Booths (Lev_23:36, Num_29:35).
‘Holy convocation’ occurs frequently in the Priestly sections of the Pentateuch (esp. Lev_17:1-16; Lev_18:1-30; Lev_19:1-37; Lev_20:1-27; Lev_21:1-24; Lev_22:1-33; Lev_23:1-44; Lev_24:1-23; Lev_25:1-55; Lev_26:1-46 [h]).
The ‘mount of the congregation, in the uttermost parts of the north’ (Isa_14:13 RV [Note: Revised Version.] ), to which the king of Babylon aspired, was the Babylonian Olympus or abode of the gods. An echo of this mythological conception is probably to be found in the similar phrase Psa_48:2.
For tabernacle of the congregation see Tabernacle.
A. R. S. Kennedy.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909

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