then your elders and your judges shall come out, and they shall measure to the cities which are around him who is slain.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 2. Ancients and judges. After the strictest inquiry, if the murderer could not be discovered, the magistrates and senate of the neighbouring cities measured which city the corpse was nearest. Josep. 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. Bible.