The cattle took the straight way by the way to Beth-shemesh; they went along the highway, lowing as they went, and didn't turn aside to the right hand or to the left; and the lords of the Philistines went after them to the border of Beth-shemesh.
Actually it should read, "Of the city, or of the people of fifty thousand, seventy were slain, seventy men were slain." In other words, of that population of the area, approximately fifty thousand people, seventy of them were slain.