SYNAGOGUE (7.,uva-yce-y7), npoo-Evr6,11poo-eux ThIna ; Heb. molar' ron, 6Eri ma, 5r; ; Aramaic town tillnD), the Jewish place of worship, wherein our Saviour performed some of his greatest miracles (Matt. xii. 9 ; Mark i. 23 ; Luke xiii. 11) and uttered some of his most sublime sayings (Luke iv. 16 ; John vi. 59).
1. Name and its signification. —Though the word crvvccycorj is used in the Sept. to denote any kind of gathering, heap, mass, or assemblage, such as a gathering of fruits (for the Heb. roam, ;ITN, Exod. xxiii. 16 ; xxxiv. 22), of water (Impo, ;Iwo, Gen. i. 9 ; Lev. xi. 36), a heap of stones 6.1, Job viii. 17), a band of singers &irc, Jer. xxxi. 4, 13), a mass or multitude of people or soldiers (nDiDt,t, is. XxiV. 22 ; Ezek. xxxvii. rob a tribe or family cron, Kings xii. 21), etc. etc., yet its predomi nant usage in this version is to denote an appointed meeting o ffieople either for civil or religious purposes, thus being synonymous with itur?ourla. This is evident from the fact that the Sept. uses alma-y(4r) 13o times tor the Hebrew nil:, and 25 times for ;.1p,, which in 7o instances is rendered in the same version by etcalo-la. The synonymous usage in the Sept. of these two expressions is also seen in Prov. v. 14, where ituanala and auKryoryh stand in juxtaposition for the Hebrew ;..9 and ;TV. This general signification of the term is also re tained in the books of the Apocrypha, and it is not till we come to the N. T. that we find o-uvaycoy4, like lexklo-la, used metonymically more especially for an appointed and recognisea' Jewish place of worship (Mol.t. iv. 23; Vi. 2, 5 ; ix. 35, al.), and also for a Christian place of worship ( James ii. 2 ; Rev. ii. 9 ; see also Ignatius, L:p. ad Trail. cap. v., ad Polja.. cap. iii. ; Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 6 ; Trench, Synonyms of the N. T sec. 1). It was only when the total separation between the Jewish synagogue and the Christian church was accom plished that the former retained the appellation crtaurywyth whilst the latter assumed the distin guishing name bcancfa. More definite than the
Greek term synagogue is the ancient Hebrew name Beth Tephila 03an ,67ros rpoo-etrxis, or simply rpoo-euxis)= Rouse of Prayer (i Maccab. iii. 46 ; 3 Maccab. vii. 2o ; Acts xvi. 13, for which the Syriac rightly has r...n& roz ; Josephus, Vita, liv.), which is now obsolete, or Beth lia-Keneseth (nman may—House of Assembly, which has super seded it. This definite local signification of the term synagogue among the Jews has necessitated the use of another expression for the members con stituting the assembly, which is 0.11VAn or 112V, to express our secondary sense of the word ?K. KM1(ria.
2. Site, structure, internal arrangement, nse, and sanctity of the Synagogue. —Taking the temple as the prototype, and following the traditional ex planation of the passages in Prov. i. 21 and Ezra ix. 9, which are taken to mean that the voice of prayer is to be mised on heights (N-Ipri ertna), and that the sanctuary was therefore erected on a sum mit (1,4r6N ;In ;IN ni:1-1), the Jewish canons decreed that synagogues are to be built upon the most elevated ground in the neighbourhood, and that no house is to be allowed to over top them (Tosiphla ; Maimonides, Arad Ha-Chew/ea fillchoth Tephila, xi. 2). So essential was this law deemed, and so strictly was it observed in Persia, even after the destruction of the temple, that Rab (A.D. 165-247 [Rio)) pro phesied a speedy ruin of those cities in which houses were permitted to tower above the syna gogue, whilst R. Ashi declared that the protection of Sora was owing to the elevated site of its syna gogues (Sabbath,' a). The river-side outside the city was also deemed a suitable spot for building the synagogue, because, being removed from the noise of the city, the people could worship God without distraction, and at the same time have the use of pure water for immersions and other reli gious exercises (Acts xvi. 13 ; Joseph. A nag. xiv. ro. 23; Juvenal, Sat. iii. 12, etc. ; see also the Chaldee versions on Gen. xxiv. 62).