ואם לא תשלים, "If she is not prepared to surrender peacefully," If the "city" does not accept the soul's proposal to allow heaven its due, or that even after man began to become a penitent he slid back into sin, then you have to make all out war against the city, i.e. the evil urge. The words ועשתה עמך מלחמה, refer to the body, i.e. the evil urge making war against you. We know that once an attempt to become a בעל תשובה fails, the chances are that the forces of evil will redouble their efforts against any religious instincts a person has. [We have a phenomenon in Israel called חוזר בשאלה. These are persons who used to be very pious but have left the fold. They are not neutral in their attitude as a result of having abandoned the Jewish tradition but become virulently anti religious seeking every opportunity to besmirch our tradition and the people who observe it. Ed.] The author describes a similar process taking place within the personality of the Jew described in our verse. We have learned in Berachot 5 that as a matter of principle one's good urge should be in a constant state of confrontation with one's evil urge. This means that one should deny oneself things which are permitted, should observe private fasts, and even flagellate oneself, all in order to weaken the power of the evil urge. This is why the Torah adds והכית כל זכורה, this will enable you to vanquish all its males, i.e. the forces of Samael and his armies.
לפי חרב, "by the sword." In our context these words may be understood as analogous to Psalms 149,6: רוממות קל בגרונם וחרב פיפיות בידם, "when they have songs of praise to God in their throats this is equal to having two-edged swords in their hands."
רק הנשים והטף, "Only the women and the children, etc." The word נשים refers to the נפש ורוח, both of which are called "women" in comparison to the higher soul known as נשמה. The word הטף refers to the commandments and good deeds a person has performed (and which are considered his children) prior to his becoming despised by God as a sinner. In the case of a wicked person, God says of him (Psalms 50,57: "concerning the wicked God said: 'who are you to recite my laws?'" When a person turns penitent, these good deeds he had performed (while an active sinner) are accounted for him as merits. We also have a statement in Yoma 86 according to which even inadvertently committed sins will be accounted as merits after a person becomes a בעל תשובה. All of these are subsumed under the heading טף, "children."
והבהמה וכל אשר בעיר תבוז לך, "and the beasts and all that is in the city you may plunder for yourself;" the word "beasts" refers to the animalistic desires a person suffers from, his love for everything sensual and material. A true בעל תשובה will be able to put all these urges and desires to use in his efforts to serve the Lord.
כן תעשה לבל הערים הרחוקות, "So you shall do to all the cities which are distant, etc." All the commandments mentioned in this paragraph have been given only to the "cities," i.e. the bodies which have become distant from God. We know from Isaiah 57,19 that God offers peace to the near and the far. The "far" are the sinners. He has become distant from his holy source, the שכינה from where all holy souls originate. However, מערי העמים האלה, "from any city of these nations" (Canaanites) cities of the Gentiles, which never had contact with sanctity and which had left its source due to its many sins, such a city has no hope of returning to a sanctity it had never possessed in the first place. This is why the Torah mentions אשר לא מערי הגוים, that all the Torah's exhortation to return to the fold is addressed only to the Jew. Others, such as the cities of the seven Canaanite nations, have to be annihilated completely. Moses made the mistake in accepting as proselytes the mixed multitude which he took out of Egypt with the Jewish people (Shemot Rabbah 42,6). God had told him in Exodus 7,4: "I will take out My hosts, My people," meaning that He would only redeem the Israelites who had holy roots. The root of these people was evil and they would not fit into a holy society. When Moses "revived" them he did not revive their נשמה as they never had a נשמה in the first place which he could have revived.