To ASCERTAIN EXACTLY — to learn a thing to the last detail. A rare verb, in the New Testament only in Matthew 2, twice, with its adverb akribōs standing between: Herod 'ascertained exactly the time' (v7), tells the magi to 'search out exactly concerning the child' (v8), and then kills every boy 'from two years old and under, according to the time he had ascertained exactly from the magi' (v16). ⚠ The precision extracted in verse 7 IS the width of the slaughter in verse 16 — the chapter's grimmest piece of vocabulary, and it works only if a translation uses one English word for all three. → first discussed at Matt 2:7