The arrangements for the women's place in a separate gallery or behind a partition of lattice-work; the desk in the centre, where the reader, like Ezra in ancient days, from his 'pulpit of wood,' may 'open the book in the sight of all of people and read in the book of the law of God distinctly, and give the sense, and cause them to understand the reading' the carefully closed ark on the side of the building nearest to Jerusalem, for the preservation of the rolls or manuscripts of the law; the seats all round the building, whence 'the eyes of all them that are in the synagogue' may 'be fastened' on him who speaks the 'chief seats' which were appropriated to the 'ruler' or 'rulers' of the synagogue, according as its organization may have been more or less complete;", these were features common to all the synagogues
Where perfected into a system, the services of the synagogue, which were at the same hours as those of the temple, consisted, .
(1) of prayer, which formed a kind of liturgy, there were in all eighteen prayers; .
(2) the reading of the Scriptures in certain definite portions; and .
(3) the exposition of the portions readThe synagogue was also sometimes used as a court of judicature, in which the rulers presided also as public schools. .
The establishment of synagogues wherever the Jews were found in sufficient numbers helped greatly to keep alive Israel's hope of the coming of the Messiah, and to prepare the way for the spread of the gospel in other lands. The worship of the Christian Church was afterwards modelled after that of the synagogue. .
Pharisees: SeparatistsThey were probably the successors of the Assideans , a party that originated in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes in revolt against his heathenizing policy.
Essenes: A Jewish mystical sect somewhat resembling the Pharisees. They affected great purity. They originated about B.C. 100 and disappeared from history after the destruction of Jerusalem.