וְכֹל֙ הַטַּ֣ף בַּנָּשִׁ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר לֹא־יָדְע֖וּ מִשְׁכַּ֣ב זָכָ֑ר הַחֲי֖וּ לָכֶֽם׃
but spare every female noncombatant who has not had carnal relations with a man.
(The above rendering comes from the RJPS translation, an adaptation of the NJPS translation.)
In his Anchor Bible volume, Baruch Levine has remarked that this verse “does not read smoothly as is,” largely because the expression הַטַּף בַּנָּשִׁים is unusual. He sees two categories referenced in this verse: girls (presumed to be virgin), and virgin women. Thus he renders as follows: “all the young children among the females, [and those] who have not known lying down with a male.”
Indeed, נָשִׁים in the expression הַטַּף בַּנָּשִׁים must be construed in terms of gender rather than age, on the grounds that טַף and נָשִׁים are distinct (albeit overlapping) categories in this passage (see v. 9); see further below. However, טַף is better understood in this passage as denoting dependents more broadly, rather than only children (see my comment at verse 9). Indeed, although Levine asserts that טַף “seems always to refer to prepubescent children,” such a claim does not withstand scrutiny, for in Num 14:31 it refers to persons up to age twenty (cf. Num 14:29).
Susan Niditch has read this pericope as if the only ones intended to be spared are “virgin girl children”—as opposed to adult women who are virgins—“to make the fence around her purity stronger and I believe to have her ‘unmarked,’ blank-slate quality all the clearer” (War in the Hebrew Bible, 1995, p. 86). She perceived that the term טַף in the present narrative places more emphasis on girlhood than do similar passages dealing with female captives: אִשָּׁה (NJPS: “woman”), Deut 21:11; נַעֲרָה בְתוּלָה (NJPS: “maidens”), Judg 21:12; נָשִׁים (NJPS: “girls”), Judg 21:14.
However, that posited distinction does not appear tenable. For Moses did not command the killing of all adult women: he said to kill only the sexually experienced ones (v. 17). Therefore the expression הַטַּף בַּנָּשִׁים here must somehow account not only for girl virgins but also for adult virgins—the converse set (or logical complement) to what Moses specified in the previous clause.
Adele Berlin points us toward the solution by noting that the condition “‘who has not had carnal relations’ . . . is not a matter of age” (pers. comm., 6/13/04). For while the term אִשָּׁה (and its functional plural נָשִׁים) normally refers only to adults (as in v. 17), it can include girls as well; see 31:35 and Judg 21:14. (This is to be expected upon viewing אִשָּׁה as a situating noun, whose semantic content is minimal.) The masculine counterpart term is similarly not age restricted in scope; see my comment at Gen 4:1 and at Isa 66:13.) If so, then הַטַּף בַּנָּשִׁים can indeed refer to female dependents of all ages—as it logically must. Apparently, in contrast to the previous verse, the prefixed preposition b’‑ here is used in its sense of introducing a particular condition, which yields: “the participating dependents who are female.”
As for rendering into English, the NJPS “young woman” is unsatisfactory: because the English term “woman” is normally understood as an age-bound category, the NJPS rendering excludes the (prepubescent) girls that Moses clearly intends to be spared. The revised rendering makes sure to include them, while casting the referring expression in English idiom.
On the rendering “noncombatant” as more contextually fitting than “dependent,” see my comment at verse 9.