Tafsiran Ulangan 13:14: Rashi, Rabbeinu Bahya, Siftei Chakhamim & Rav Hirsch

אנשים CERTAIN MEN — but not women (Sifrei Devarim 93:1).

יצאו אנשים בני בליעל, “lawless men have emerged from your midst;” the word בליעל means “not capable of rising spiritually to the domain of G’d.” Alternatively, the word is not connected to על but to עול, “yoke,” people who refuse to wear the yoke of any restrictive legislation, rejection of the authority of heaven. Our sages understand the emphasis on the word אנשים to mean that the legislation spelled out here does not apply if the instigators were women (compare Sanhedrin 111). The words יושבי עירם, “inhabitants of their city, are also understood restrictively, i.e. only if they misled people of their own city does this city have to be destroyed.

But not women. Otherwise why is the word אנשים (men) needed? For Scripture already writes בני בליעל (unscrupulous people). And this is why Rashi explains בליעל before he explains אנשים [even though it appears in the verse later].

בני בליעל. WORTHLESS PERSONS — people that have thrown off the yoke of the Omnipresent (the word is taken in the sense of בְּלִי עוֹל, without a yoke) (Sifrei Devarim 93:2).

ישבי עירם THE INHABITANTS OF THEIR CITY — but not the inhabitants of another city (Sifrei Devarim 93:4). From here they (our Rabbis) derived what they said, “A town is not treated as an עיר הנדחת (i.e. does not come under the category of a “condemned city” which according to vv. 16—17 must be utterly destroyed) unless it be men who lead them (the inhabitants) astray, and unless its seducers be of its midst (inhabitants of that city) (Sanhedrin 111b).