Masechet (tractate) Avodah Zarah (idolatry), Perek (chapter) Dalet (four), Mishnah Aleph (one): this Mishnah is going to talk about the Avodah Zarah that we know as Markulis. Markulis in the times of the Torah was a type of Avodah Zarah that they would worship to help them in business and during travel. The planet Mercury is named after that. The way that the Avodah Zarah looked was two stones on the bottom and then one stone on top, representing the head on top and the arms on the bottom that had power. These mounds of stones would usually be found by the crossroads to give direction to travelers. So people who were passing by would throw a stone at it. The way it was worshipped is they would throw a stone onto the pile. Those stones obviously became forbidden to benefit from, like the idol itself.
Here we'll talk about what happens if you have other stones that are found in the area of the Markulis, but not actually super close. In other words, they were more than four Amot (cubits) away from the Markulis. The Mishnah says: If there are three stones, one next to another, found lying near the Markulis but still more than four Amot away, we say they're forbidden to benefit from them because it's possible that a mini-version of the Markulis idol was set up. Many times, people near the main Markulis would set up a smaller version of the Markulis. And we have to be nervous that this idol here, or these stones, are a mini-Markulis. But if it was only two stones, it would be permitted because two stones are not enough to make a Markulis. They would make it with a minimum of three stones.
But the Chachamim (Sages) are going to disagree. “Ha-nir'ot imo asurot,” say the Chachamim. When these stones appear together with the Markulis, which means they're within four Amot of the Markulis, even if they're only one or two stones, they would be forbidden. So that Chachamim agree with. Because there, you're going to assume that maybe it rolled away. It fell off of the main Markulis. But if the stones do not appear together with the main Markulis, it's permitted. So if it was more than four Amot away, even if it was three stones, we're not going to assume that it was a Markulis. We don't assume that they established mini-Markulis near the main Markulis.