The estate of the elders; their sanhedrim or great council.
Letters; commission or orders.
The brethren; the Jews of Damascus are called brethren, because they descended from the patriarchs as well as he. And still, as Act_22:1, he would overcome that stubborn people with civility, heaping up coals of fire on their heads, Rom_12:20, that they might be melted, and then formed after a more excellent manner.