כל המיטלטלין מביאין את הטומאה – because of the tent. For if it overshadows its one head over the corpse and other head over the vessels, it brings the defilement.

כעובי המרדע (as thick as an ox-goad) – even if it lacks the width of a handbreadth but rather that it has in its circumference a handbreadth. For a thread of a handbreadth surrounds it, for they (i.e., the Rabbis) decreed on its circumference because of is thickness.

אקפח את בני (May I bury my children -an oath frequently used by Rabbi Tarfon) – I will bury them. [The word] קיפוח/deprivation – is the language of mutilation/excision or cutting. And it is an oath, “may I bury my children if this thing is not true” that this Halakha is forced/prevented, defected/lopped and cut piece-meal. For we require an opening of a handbreadth.

ששמע השומע – when the question was asked through an actual event/incident in the Bet Midrash/academy and he heard that they defiled and he did not know for what reason they defied it. They defiled the ox-goad because of the utensils that overshadow over the corpse, that the vessel itself that overshadows the corpse is impure regardless of the amount, for we don’t require an opening of a handbreadth other than to bring the defilement under its second head, and they defiled the farmer either because of either for the reason of connections or because he had vessels that touched the corpse and a person [who came in contact] with vessels and is impure for a period of seven days. But the listener erred to state that they defiled him for the reason that the ox-goad brings upon him defilement from the law of the tent.

שיהו דברי חכמים מקויימים (that the words of the Sages may endure) – that they say that the ox-goad brings the defilement.

על האדם הנושאן – there are times when a person who carries them does not have upon him anything other than defilement for one night, for his clothing interrupts between his shoulder and the ox-goat and it is for him “that he will offer with that he will offer to that he will offer,” (see Leviticus 21:17, 18 and 22:3) that a person who sees that they defile him a defilement of an evening will err to state that it is because of the tent that they defiled him, because it has a circumference of a handbreadth, and it comes to inform us that the defilement of a tent has naught other than the defilement of an evening. Therefore, they (i.e., the Sages) decreed upon him “like the thickness of an ox-goad” to defile for a period of seven days according to their words (i.e., of the Rabbis) because of the tent.

ועל עצמן בכל שהוא – for a vessel that overshadows over a corpse is impure, even of any amount.

ועל שאר אדם וכלים – that is underneath the ox-goad.

בפותח טפח – because they don’t defilement at all, it doesn’t belong to defile on its circumference because of its thickness.

כוש (reed used a spindle) – a spindle that women spin on. And even though they are flat wooden vessels, it is susceptible to receive Levitical defilement, because of the metal hook/curved pin that is fixed in it.

אע"פ שאינן מכוונין (even though they are not directly opposite one another)- for two halves of an olive’s bulk [of a corpse] are not directly opposite each other.

טמא – the spindle. That it brings the defilement upon itself with any amount.

הקדר – who sells pots.

והסל – the balancing pole/staff that he carries the pots. And in the Tractate Kelim (Chapter 17, Mishnah 16) they call it an איסל /pole or yoke carried on two, or more commonly, one shoulder and it is taught in the Mishnah there: "האיסל שיש בו בית קיבול מעות"/a carrying yoke in which there is a (hidden) receptacle for money.

ואם יש באיסל פותח טפח – it brings the defilement on the pots that are underneath it to the second side where they are suspended on it (i.e., the yoke).

התלוליות (the mounds) – it is the language of a תל/a hill.

הקרובות בין לעיר – that are adjacent/near to the cemetery.

בין לדרך – that is near the cemetery.

אחד חדשות ואחד ישנות – because that the women bury their non-viable births, that up to fifty cubits a woman goes alone and buries her non-viable birth. But the ones far away, a woman doesn’t go alone to bury [the non-viable birth] on the mound/hill, and since she needed a man that would go with her, she goes to the cemetery but doesn’t bury on the hill. And that which we defile the old ones and even the far-off ones, for we are concerned lest the near ones were from their beginnings and the city was destroyed and the matter would be forgotten.

ור' יהודה אומר כו' – And the Halakha is according to Rabbi Yehuda.

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.

הבודק – that which is taught in the [previous] Mishnah: "ובודק הימנו ולהלן עשרים אמה"/And he examines [the ground] from it and onward for twenty cubits, there is no need to dig it all up, but rather, he digs a cubit by a cubit and leaves a cubit hat he doesn’t dig, and he does this until he reaches the end of twenty [cubits]. And that cubit that he digs he must dig until he reaches the rock or the virgin/untouched soil, which is ground that had never ever been dug.

המוציא את העפר ממקום הטומאה – from those cubits that he digs.

אוכל בדמאו – if he is a Kohen, he eats of his heave-offering. It is the language of (Exodus 22:28): “You shall not put off the skimming of the first yield of your vats.” But even though the Kohanim are not permitted to check, they are warned about the defilement, nevertheless, if the Kohen happens by chance to check, he is not forbidden to eat heave-offering where it is not under the presumption of defilement being there.

המפקח את הגל – of stones that fell upon a person and he died. If he was a Kohen, he does not eat of his doubtful heave offering. For since it is under the presumption that there is defilement there, we are concerned that perhaps [the corpse] was overshadowed, and even we are concerned even if he is doubtfully alive or doubtfully dead.

היה בודק- to complete the twenty cubits.

לנחל – river.

לשלולית (to a pool, pond, rivulet) – a rivulet/canal which imparts booty (alluvium) to its banks and other canals of what drink from it.

או לדרך הרבים – and they don’t bury the dead/corpse in it (i.e., the public road).

מפסיק - and he doesn’t examine further to complete the twenty cubits.

והכל טהור – and they don’t have the ground which it occupied (i.e., the earth surrounding the buried corpse), but rather he collects the bones alone and he doesn’t have to take more.

רבי שמעון אומר כו' – But the Halakha is not according to Rabbi Shimon.