Verse 16
16. Whom thou knowest to be the elders Something in addition to mature age is evidently sought, namely, the qualities which properly belong to advancing years gravity, wisdom, and piety. Out of an existing class of elders the seventy were to be chosen by Moses. See Exodus 24:1.
Officers Hebrew, shoterim. These were not judges, (Deuteronomy 16:18,) but writers who kept the genealogical registers on which all hereditary succession and ancestral fame depended. Hence the office was fully as dignified as that of a judge. In subsequent times the Levites, the scholastic tribe, supplied most of these scribes. See Exodus 5:6-9, notes. These were brought unto the tabernacle, that they might be first separated from secular employments and then be filled with the Spirit.
After this public inauguration there could be no doubt among the people as to their authority. If this body of elders was designed to be a permanent council the Sanhedrim of the New Testament it is remarkable that no further mention is made of it in the Old Testament during the fifteen intervening centuries. Hence we conclude that this senate was designed only to afford temporary relief to Moses amid the extraordinary perplexities of the sojourn in the wilderness.
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