1. The organization of quorums of Seventy in the Church was regarded as a very strange thing in modern times, but that such an organization had existed in the Church of God, both in the days of Moses and also in the days of Messiah, is evident from the scriptures. The Lord said to Moses: "Come up unto the Lord, thou, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and worship ye afar off. * * * Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. * * * And upon the nobles of the children of Israel He laid not His hand: also they saw God, and did eat and drink" (Exodus 24:1, 9, 11). And again, "And the Lord said unto Moses, Gather unto me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom thou knowest to be the elders of the people, and officers over them; and bring them unto the tabernacle of the congregation, that they may stand there with thee. And I will come down and talk with thee there: and I will take of the spirit which is upon thee, and will put it upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, that thou bear it not thyself alone. * * * And Moses went out, and told the people the words of the Lord, and gathered the seventy men of the elders of the people, and set them round about the tabernacle. And the Lord came down in a cloud, and spake unto him, and took of the Spirit that was upon him, and gave it unto the seventy elders: and it came to pass, that, when the Spirit rested upon them, they prophesied, and did not cease" (Numbers 11:16, 17, 24, 25). It is not clear from the Old Testament just what the functions of the Seventy were in the Hebrew Priesthood, but they certainly were endowed with prophetic powers, and it is quite probable that the Sanhedrin (consisting of seventy-one members, inclusive of the president,) of later Jewish times had some relation to this earlier council of seventy.