Bible Dictionaries
Gamaliel

Holman Bible Dictionary

(guh may' lih ehl) Personal name meaning, “God rewards with good.” 1. The son of Pedahzur; a leader of the tribe of Manasseh, who helped Moses take the census in the wilderness (Numbers 1:10 ). Compare Numbers 7:54-59 . 2 . A highly regarded Pharisee who was a member of the Sanhedrin (Acts 5:34 ). He squelched a plan by the Sanhedrin to kill the apostles by reminding the members that interference with what the apostles were doing might prove to be opposition to God. If the work of the apostles were a purely human work, Gamaliel said, it would come to nothing anyway. According to Acts 22:3 , this Gamaliel had been Paul's teacher. He was the grandson of the great Rabbi Hillel. He died about A.D. 52. 3. A leading Jewish rabbi in the late first and early second centuries A.D. He was the grandson of the Gamaliel mentioned in the Book of Acts. He is credited with many of the adaptations in Judaism necessitated by the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70.