After we already have beaten Midyan in war, we are given laws about kashering utensils. This paragraph receives an interesting intorduction; it starts with the words ‘and Elazar the Kohen said to the people of the army who are coming TO war’ (31;21). Shouldn’t it be ‘the people who came FROM war?’
The Chovas Halevavos explains that in life, the war never ends. One might think they have won a victory, but there is always a bigger battle coming – the battle with the yetzer hara. Here, too, he points out that though the Bnei Yisrael won a physical war, they were now coming to the real war; the war with the yetzer hara to avoid houghtiness about their vicotry and to attribute it to HaShem.
Thus, they were coming TO war.
