Deuteronomy 21:2
Thy ancients and judges shall go out, and shall measure from the place where the body lieth the distance of every city round about:
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- egredientur majores natu, et judices tui, et metientur a loco cadaveris singularum per circuitum spatia civitatum :
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἐξελεύσεται ἡ γερουσία σου καὶ οἱ κριταί σου, καὶ ἐκμετρήσουσιν ἐπὶ τὰς πόλεις τὰς κύκλῳ τοῦ τραυματίου·
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וְיָצְא֥וּ זְקֵנֶ֖יךָ וְשֹׁפְטֶ֑יךָ וּמָדְדוּ֙ אֶל הֶ֣עָרִ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֖ר סְבִיבֹ֥ת הֶחָלָֽל
Haydock's commentary
Ancients and judges. After the strictest enquiry, if the murderer could not be discovered, the magistrates and senate of the neighbouring cities measured which city the corpse was nearest. (Josephus, [Antiquities?] iv. 8.) The Rabbins pretend that five of the Sanhedrim were commissioned to make this enquiry, along with the magistrates of the neighbourhood. Others think that the ancients were only the old men. The measuring took place only when the point was contested, and those cities are probably meant, which were of sufficient importance to have twenty-three judges fixed in them. (Calmet)
It was presumed that the nearest had been guilty of greater negligence. (Haydock)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.