72 Preface وَإِذ قَتَلتُم نَفسًا فَادّارَأتُم فيها ۖ وَاللَّهُ مُخرِجٌ ما كُنتُم تَكتُمونَYusuf AliRemember ye slew a man1 and fell into a dispute among yourselves as to the crime: But God was to bring forth what ye did hide.In Deut. 21:1-9 it is ordained that if the body of a slain man be found in a field and the slayer is not known, a heifer shall he beheaded, and the elders of the city next to the slain man’s domicile shall wash their hands over the heifer and say that they neither did the deed nor saw it done, thus clearing themselves from the blood-guilt. The Jewish story based on this was that in a certain case of this kind, every one tried to clear himself of guilt and lay the blame at the door of others. In the first place they tried to prevaricate and prevent a heifer being slain as in the last parable. When she was slain, God by a miracle disposed the real person. A portion of the sacrificed heifer was ordered to be placed on the corpse, which came to life and disclosed the whole story of the crime. The lesson of this parable is that men may try to hide their crime individually or collectively, but God will bring them to light in unexpected ways. Applying this further to Jewish national history, the argument is developed in the following verses that the Children of Israel played fast and loose with their own rites and traditions, but they could not thus evade the consequences of their own sin.