Mishnayos Oholos Perek 16 Mishnah 3

המוצא מת בתחלה – for it was not known that there was a graveyard there, and this what we say in the Gemara in [Tractate] Nazir [folio 64b]: "המוצא"/He who finds a corpse, but not that it was accessible; dead, excluding one that was killed, for a killed person has no ground which is pressed by a body in the grave (and which is considered the dead person’s property) and he lacked a neighborhood of graves, and this is what is derived.

מושכב – and not that he was sitting.

כדרכו – and not that his head was lying between his thighs. For all of these, we are concerned/worried lest they are heathens, for it is not manner of Israelites to bury their dead as such.

נוטלו ואת תבוסתו (if one finds in his field a body in the usual position of a buried man, the first time, he may remove it with the ground which it occupies – for burial in another place) – it is permissible to remove him from there and to bury him in another place. And he must take from the dust of the grave with him, the ground which is pressed by the body in the grave (and which is considered the dead man’s property), which is all the crushed, loose earth that is underneath him, and he digs in virgin earth three fingerbreadths as it is written (Genesis 47:30): “[When I lie down with my fathers,] take me up from Egypt and bury me in their burial-place,” for he didn’t need to say, “from Egypt”, but rather, this is what he said: “from the dust of Egypt take with me.” But Maimonides had the reading "תבוסתו"/his ground that is pressed by a body in a grave (as opposed to the reading in the Mishnah"תבוסתן"/their ground that is pressed by a body in a grave, the dust that is mixed from blood and the moisture/secretion of the corpse. It is the language of (Ezekiel 16:6): “[When I passed by you] and saw your wallowing in your blood, [I said to you: ‘live in spite of your blood.’].”

מצא שלשה. אם יש בין זה לזה מארבע אמות ועד שמונה – meaning to say, from the first grave until the third, there is no less than four cubits and not more than eight [cubits].

הרי זה שכונת קבורות (behold, this is a graveyard) – and it is recognized that to there burial is provided to them there, and it is prohibited to remove them, for they have acquired their place. And even,one corpse if it is known that to there burial was given to him, it is forbidden to remove him. But that for one or two we suspend [this view] that they were not buried there other than on a temporary basis and it was their intention to have them removed, but with three, it is proven that this is a special place for burials. And the length of the cave is its manner to be six [cubits] long and four [cubits] wide with a diagonal line of the surplus of two cubits which is eight. And because of this, it is taught [in our Mishnah]: “from four cubits and until eight.”

כמלוא מטה וקובריה – we don’t have this reading here.

בודק ממנו ולהלן עשרים אמה – that the cave is four cubits wide by six in length, and the courtyard and the caves are open to him from here and from there, six [cubits] by six [cubits], for this is what the Rabbis hold in [Tractate] Bava Batra, in the chapter: "המוכר פירות" /He who sells fruit (Chapter 6) [folio 101a, see also the Gemara on folio 102a], it is found that the length of two caves and a courtyard that is between them is eighteen cubits, and because that sometimes they dig one cave in a diagonal, and the diagonal of a cave has a surplus on its square of two cubits, they are found to be twenty cubits, eighteen of the first cave with a diagonal and six [cubits] of the courtyard that is between the two caves and six [cubits] of the second cave, for one diagonal we have stated, two diagonals we have not stated. And that is what is taught [in the Mishnah] regarding twenty. And further one needs to check from above and below twenty cubits, and that is forty cubits, for perhaps this is a cave that is in the eastern part of the courtyard and there still another [cave] that is opposite on the western side of the courtyard; alternatively, this one is on the western side of the courtyard and there is still another on the eastern part of the courtyard.

מצא מת אחד בסוף עשרים בודק הימנו ולהלן עשרים אמה – for who would say that from this cemetery there is this cave, perhaps there is another cave and another courtyard of another person, and one must also make to there all of the examinations mentioned above, for just as there is a grave there, just like this, there are others.

שרגלים לדבר – after that is found already in this field a graveyard.

שאילו מחלה מצאו – for this grave prior to his having found the first three, he removes it and its soil that it occupies, as it is taught in the first clause of the Mishnah: "המוצא מת בתחלה כו' נוטלו ואת תפוסתו"/a person finds a corpse in first instance, he removes it and the soil that is with it.