reads, Nyjwydh ynb, "the children of idiots", or "private men": and in the Targum on 1Sa 18:23 it is used for one lightly esteemed, and comparable to a flea: it sometimes designs persons in a private life, though men of learning and knowledge, in distinction from those that are in office; so we read , that"three kings, and four twjwydh, "private" persons, have no part in the world to come; the three kings are Jeroboam, Ahab, and Manasseh; the four "idiots", or private men, are Balaam, Doeg, Ahithophel, and Gehazi.'
'And so a bench of idiots, or private men, is distinguished from a bench of authorized and approved judges ; and sometimes the word is used of such, as are distinguished from doctors, or wise men; so when it is said ,"the command of plucking off the shoe, is done before three judges, and though the three are "idiots";''the note of Maimonides upon it is,"not wise men, but that know how to read the language,''the Hebrew language: and such were the disciples, in every sense of the word; they were mean and abject, poor fishermen, men of no name and figure, that were in no office, and exalted station of life, nor versed in Jewish learning, but common private men: so thatthey marvelled; the sanheddrim were astonished to hear them talk with so much fluency and pertinence:and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus; looking wistly upon them, they knew them again, and remembered that; they were persons that were the disciples of Jesus, and whom they had seen in company with him; not in the high priest's palace, when Jesus was arraigned, examined, and condemned there; though Peter, and some think John was there at that time, yet not to be observed and taken notice of by the sanhedrim; but in the temple where Jesus taught, and where the chief priests, Scribes, and elders came, and disputed with him about his authority, and cavilled at him, Mt 21:15.
Misn. Yoma, c. 1. sect. 3. Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 11. sect. 2. T. Bab. Bava Metzia, fol. 32. 11. Misn. Yebamot, c. 12. sect.