King Jehoshaphat is here said to have appointed a central court in Jerusalem and local courts in all the towns; and the arrangement was permanent. The local court or Sanhedrin is apparently what is meant by “the judgement” in this passage of the Sermon, and the central court or supreme Sanhedrin is what is meant by “the council.” Now certain even capital offences could be dealt with by the local courts, but the gravest only by the central Sanhedrin. Thus there was a gradation of crimes. Moreover, the Jews believed in an awful penalty after death for those who had egregiously sinned. Gehenna――that is, the Valley of Hinnom, close to Jerusalem――was the place where children had been burnt alive in sacrifice to Moloch; and it had become later a metaphor for the place of punishment after death. Thus, it appears, the Jews recognized ordinary offences which came before the local court, special offences which came before the central court, and an awful penalty after death for the worst sort of offences. Now, no offence was brought under the cognizance of the Jewish law at all which was not a sin in act; the sin of actual murder for instance. But our Lord raises the whole standard of guilt. He takes no account of sins of act at all. In the citizens of His new kingdom, sins of act are, as it were, out of the question. The way He deals with the law――specifically the law of murder, but in principle all the laws――is, if we may paraphrase His words, this: Under the new law you are to think of malicious anger, of anger and malice entertained in your hearts, as under the old law men were accustomed to think of ordinary homicide. When this malice of heart expresses itself in the word of dislike and contempt, that is a graver offence, and shall have attached to it the same moral guilt as would in the old days have brought a man before the central court. And the stronger expression of reprobation, “Thou fool,” is a sin which may bring a man into eternal punishment. “He is liable (literally) up to the point of the Gehenna of fire.” Our Lord certainly speaks in metaphor. Because obviously one could not in fact bring a man under any earthly tribunal for the thoughts of his heart. But the meaning is plain. Our Lord raises deliberately allowed sins of thought and feeling to the level previously occupied by overt acts; and words He counts yet graver sins; and the deliberate expression of hatred He counts a sin which may destroy the soul. This is the way in which He deals with the sixth commandment (though it would apply to all the others). And then He adds a sort of parenthesis dealing with the duty of _hastening_ to remove any uncharitable relation in which we may stand towards others.