Deuteronomy 21:6
And the ancients of that city shall come to the person slain, and shall wash their hands over the heifer that was killed in the valley,
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et venient majores natu civitatis illius ad interfectum, lavabuntque manus suas super vitulam, quæ in valle percussa est,
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ πᾶσα ἡ γερουσία τῆς πόλεως ἐκείνης οἱ ἐγγίζοντες τῷ τραυματίᾳ νίψονται τὰς χεῖρας ἐπὶ τὴν κεφαλὴν τῆς δαμάλεως τῆς νενευροκοπημένης ἐν τῇ φάραγγι,
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וְכֹ֗ל זִקְנֵי֙ הָעִ֣יר הַהִ֔וא הַקְּרֹבִ֖ים אֶל הֶחָלָ֑ל יִרְחֲצוּ֙ אֶת יְדֵיהֶ֔ם עַל הָעֶגְלָ֖ה הָעֲרוּפָ֥ה בַנָּֽחַל
Haydock's commentary
Wash. This was intended to testify that they were not guilty of the blood which had been shed, and that they wished to remove the punishment of it from themselves upon the head of the heifer, (Calmet) the representative of the unknown murderer. So Pilate conformed to this custom, when he condemned Christ on the bare accusation of the Jews; (Matthew xxvii. 24) and the priest, at mass, washes his hands, as an emblem of that innocence, with which he ought to approach to the holy of holies. (Haydock)
Asterius was stricken with lightning, for touching the altar of Jupiter without having washed his hands. (Natal. Myth. i. 10. 14.) The pagans generally purified themselves with fumigations, or by sprinkling sea water upon their bodies. Achilles ordered the things which had been used to purify the Greeks, at the siege of Troy, to be thrown into the sea, as being unclean. (Iliad i.)
Where a note speaks of the Jewish people, the Church teaches that the Passion cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).
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.