We were talking in the last perek (chapter) about the bet din (courthouse) and the judgment they would give to somebody who was on trial for the death penalty. Now we'll talk about what happens if he was found guilty: what was the next step? Obviously, the bet din would put someone to death only if he had done something so bad that he deserved it.
The four types of executions were stoning, burning, beheading, and strangulation: Sekilah (stoning), sereifah (burning), hereg (beheading), and vechenek (strangulation)—the four types of executions the Torah talks about.
Here we'll talk about what would happen before they stoned a person. Nigmar hadin, once the trial ended and they said that the man was supposed to be killed through sekilah, through stoning, they would take him out and then stone him.
Bet ha-sekila hayah chutz le-bet din. The place where they would stone him was a little bit of a distance away from the bet din. It wasn't right outside the bet din. Shene'emar, hotze et ha-mekalel. Like the pasuk (verse) tells us: take out the man who cursed God.
This is talking about a story that happened in Sefer Vayikra with somebody who spoke evil about Hashem. They took him out and stoned him. From here, we infer that they took him to a place that was not close to the courthouse, to the bet din. They did this to stall a little bit for time. Maybe a last-ditch effort would come up to find a reason to say that this person was not guilty. So they sort of delayed it by having to take him to a spot to be executed. Even during this time, they were hoping and praying that something would happen so they wouldn't have to kill this man, and that they would find a reason to say that he was not guilty. So they took him out to a place that was not close to the courthouse, to the bet din.
As they were taking the man to the spot to be executed, a man would stand by the door of the bet din, of the courthouse, with a flag in his hand. A little distance from him, but still within sight, there would be a man on a horse. As we'll explain, the man on the horse was between the spot where the execution was going to happen and the bet din. He would be able to see if the man from the bet din was waving the white flag he had. That meant something had come up and they had to delay the execution. The man on the horse would ride quickly all the way to the spot of the execution and put the execution on pause.
One of the judges came and said, “You know what? I thought of a new reason why we could say that the man is innocent,” while the man was already being escorted to the spot of the execution. The man with the flag would wave the flag as a signal. The rider on the horse, who was already halfway there, would race on horseback all the way to the spot of the execution. He would stop the execution until the court had time to discuss and possibly reverse the decision.
Even if the person who was about to be put to death told them, “You know what? I have a new reason. I have a new argument why I should be acquitted, why I'm innocent,” they would pause everything. They would bring him back to the courthouse and hear what he had to say. Even if this happened over and over again, four or five times, we would bring him back to the courthouse every single time. We don't want to put an innocent man to death. As long as the man is saying something of substance, he's making sense. He's saying something real, and he has a valid reason behind it. He can't just be faking out the bet din. He has to actually have something that he wants to talk about. If they find a reason to say that he's innocent, then they acquit him. They say that he's innocent; they acquit him. But if not, then he goes out to be stoned.
Something else they would do to give him a last chance not to get killed and to be acquitted: before they took him out to be executed, or while they were taking him out, they would make a big announcement. Somebody would walk in front of him, and they would say, they would say, “This man, the son of this man, is being taken out to be stoned because he violated a certain type of sin. The following two people”—and they would name their names—“were the witnesses who gave testimony against him. Anybody who has a reason to say that this man should be acquitted, to prove his innocence, should come forward now and tell us.”
They made the execution and every detail public so that if anybody thought of a reason to say that the man had not committed the sin, he would come and tell the bet din. They would then say that the man would not be executed. We also say the witnesses' names publicly so that if other people said, “No, the witnesses were in a different place at the time of the crime,” those people would come forward and tell the bet din. They would disqualify those witnesses and then not kill the man.