Deuteronomy 21:2

Bible in Basic English

Then your responsible men and your judges are to come out, and give orders for the distance from the dead body to the towns round about it to be measured;

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
your elders and judges are to come out and measure the distance from the victim to the nearby cities.

Hebrew Names Version
then your Zakenim and your judges shall come forth, and they shall measure to the cities which are round about him who is slain:

King James Version
Then thy elders and thy judges shall come forth, and they shall measure unto the cities which are round about him that is slain:

Lexham English Bible
then your elders and your judges shall go out and shall measure the distance to the cities that are around the slain one.

English Standard Version
then your elders and your judges shall come out, and they shall measure the distance to the surrounding cities.

New Century Version
Your elders and judges should go to where the body was found, and they should measure how far it is to the nearby cities.

New English Translation
your elders and judges must go out and measure how far it is to the cities in the vicinity of the corpse.

Amplified Bible
then your elders and judges shall go out and measure the distance to the cities which are around the dead person.

New American Standard Bible
then your elders and your judges shall go out and measure the distance to the cities which are around the one who was killed.

Geneva Bible (1587)
Then thine Elders & thy Iudges shal come forth, and measure vnto the cities that are round about him that is slayne.

Legacy Standard Bible
then your elders and your judges shall go out and measure the distance to the cities which are around the slain one.

Contemporary English Version
The judges and other leaders from the towns around there must find out what town is the closest to where the body was found.

Complete Jewish Bible
then your leaders and judges are to go out and measure the distance between it and the surrounding towns.

Darby Translation
then thine elders and thy judges shall go forth, and they shall measure unto the cities which are round about him that is slain;

Easy-to-Read Version
Your leaders and judges must come out and measure the distance to the towns around the dead body.

George Lamsa Translation
Then your elders and your judges shall come forth, and they shall measure the distance to the cities which are round about him that is slain;

Good News Translation
Your leaders and judges are to go out and measure the distance from the place where the body was found to each of the nearby towns.

Literal Translation
then your elders and your judges shall come out. And they shall measure to the cities which are around the one slain.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
then shal thy Elders & iudges go forth, and meet from the slayne vnto the cities that lye rounde aboute.

American Standard Version
then thy elders and thy judges shall come forth, and they shall measure unto the cities which are round about him that is slain:

Bishop's Bible (1568)
Then thine elders and thy iudges shal come foorth, and measure vnto the cities that are rounde about hym that is slayne:

JPS Old Testament (1917)
then thy elders and thy judges shall come forth, and they shall measure unto the cities which are round about him that is slain.

King James Version (1611)
Then thy Elders and thy Iudges shall come forth, and they shall measure vnto the cities which are round about him that is slaine.

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
thine elders and thy judges shall come forth, and shall measure the distances of the cities round about the slain man:

English Revised Version
then thy elders and thy judges shall come forth, and they shall measure unto the cities which are round about him that is slain:

Berean Standard Bible
your elders and judges must come out and measure the distance from the victim to the neighboring cities.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
the grettere men in birthe and thi iugis schulen go out, and schulen mete fro the place of the careyn the spaces of alle citees `bi cumpas;

Young's Literal Translation
then have thine elders and thy judges gone out and measured unto the cities which [are] round about the slain one,

Update Bible Version
then your elders and your judges shall come forth, and they shall measure to the cities which are round about him that is slain:

Webster's Bible Translation
Then thy elders and thy judges shall come forth, and they shall measure to the cities which [are] around him that is slain:

World English Bible
then your elders and your judges shall come forth, and they shall measure to the cities which are round about him who is slain:

New King James Version
then your elders and your judges shall go out and measure the distance from the slain man to the surrounding cities.

New Living Translation
In such a case, your elders and judges must measure the distance from the site of the crime to the nearby towns.

New Life Bible
then your leaders and judges will go out and see how far it is to the cities that are around the dead man.

New Revised Standard
then your elders and your judges shall come out to measure the distances to the towns that are near the body.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
then shall thine elders and thy judges go forth, - and measure unto the cities that are round about the slain;

Douay-Rheims Bible
Thy ancients and judges shall go out, and shall measure from the place where the body lieth the distance of every city round about:

Revised Standard Version
then your elders and your judges shall come forth, and they shall measure the distance to the cities which are around him that is slain;

New American Standard Bible (1995)
then your elders and your judges shall go out and measure the distance to the cities which are around the slain one.

Contextual Overview

¹ If, in the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you come across the dead body of a man in the open country, and you have no idea who has put him to death: ² Then your responsible men and your judges are to come out, and give orders for the distance from the dead body to the towns round about it to be measured; ³ And whichever town is nearest to the body, the responsible men of that town are to take from the herd a young cow which has never been used for work or put under the yoke; ⁴ And they are to take the cow into a valley where there is flowing water, and which is not ploughed or planted, and there the neck of the cow is to be broken: ⁵ Then the priests, the sons of Levi, are to come near; for they have been marked out by the Lord your God to be his servants and to give blessings in the name of the Lord; and by their decision every argument and every blow is to be judged: ⁶ And all the responsible men of that town which is nearest to the dead man, washing their hands over the cow whose neck was broken in the valley, ⁷ Will say, This death is not the work of our hands and our eyes have not seen it. ⁸ Have mercy, O Lord, on your people Israel whom you have made free, and take away from your people the crime of a death without cause. Then they will no longer be responsible for the man's death. ⁹ So you will take away the crime of a death without cause from among you, when you do what is right in the eyes of the Lord.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Deuteronomy 16:18, Deuteronomy 16:19, Romans 13:3, Romans 13:4

Reciprocal: Deuteronomy 21:19 - and bring

Cross-References

Genesis 17:19
And God said, Not so; but Sarah, your wife, will have a son, and you will give him the name Isaac, and I will make my agreement with him for ever and with his seed after him.

Genesis 17:21
But my agreement will be with Isaac, to whom Sarah will give birth a year from this time.

Genesis 18:10
And he said, I will certainly come back to you in the spring, and Sarah your wife will have a son. And his words came to the ears of Sarah who was at the back of the tent-door.

Genesis 18:14
Is there any wonder which the Lord is not able to do? At the time I said, in the spring, I will come back to you, and Sarah will have a child.

Genesis 21:16
And she went some distance away, about an arrow flight, and seating herself on the earth, she gave way to bitter weeping, saying, Let me not see the death of my child.

Genesis 21:17
And the boy's cry came to the ears of God; and the angel of God said to Hagar from heaven, Hagar, why are you weeping? have no fear, for the child's cry has come to the ears of God.

Genesis 21:24
And Abraham said, I will give you my oath.

Genesis 21:25
But Abraham made a protest to Abimelech because of a water-hole which Abimelech's servants had taken by force.

Luke 1:36
Even now Elisabeth, who is of your family, is to be a mother, though she is old: and this is the sixth month with her who was without children.

Acts 7:8
And he made with him the agreement of which circumcision was the sign. And so Abraham had a son, Isaac, and gave him circumcision on the eighth day; and Isaac had a son, Jacob, and Jacob was the father of the twelve heads of the families of Israel.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Then thy elders and thy judges shall come forth,.... From the city or cities near to which the murder was committed, to make inquiry about it, and expiation for it; so Aben Ezra interprets it of the elders of the cities near, but others understand it of the elders of the great sanhedrim at Jerusalem; so the Targum of Jonathan,

"then shall go out from the great sanhedrim two of thy wise men, and three of thy judges;''

and more expressly the Misnah l,

"three go out from the great sanhedrim in Jerusalem;''

R. Judah says five,

"it is said "thy elders" two, and "thy judges" two,''

and there is no sanhedrim or court of judicature equal (or even), therefore they add to them one more:

and they shall measure unto the cities which are round about him that is slain; that is, from the place where the slain lies, as Jarchi rightly interprets it; on all sides of it, from the four corner's, as the Targum of Jonathan, the cities round about the slain. Maimonides m says, they do not behead the heifer for, nor measure, but to a city in which there is a sanhedrim: if it is found between two cities (that is, at an equal distance), both bring two heifers (Maimonides n says they bring one between them, which is most reasonable); but the city of Jerusalem does not bring an heifer to be beheaded: the reason is, because it was not divided to the tribes o. This measuring, one would think, should be only necessary when it was not certain which was the nearest city; and yet Maimonides p says, even when it was found on the side of a city, which was certainly known to be nearest, they measured; the command, he observes, is to measure.

l Sotah, c. 9. sect. 1. m Hilchot Rotzeach, c. 9. sect. 4. n Ib. sect. 8. o Maimon Hilchot Rotzeachs, c. 9. sect. 8. p lb. c. 9. sect. 1.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The elders represented the citizens at large, the judges the magistracy: priests Deuteronomy 21:5 from the nearest priestly town, were likewise to be at hand. Thus, all classes would be represented at the purging away of that blood-guiltiness which until removed attached to the whole community.