Many times God orders His people to utterly destroy the enemy. This one is from Judges, the same book that had Gideon's army which I see as allegory. Could this be figurative also?
Jdg 21:10-12 And the congregation sent thither twelve thousand men of the valiantest, and commanded them, saying, Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the children. (11) And this is the thing that ye shall do, Ye shall utterly destroy every male, and every woman that hath lain by man. (12) And they found among the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead four hundred young virgins, that had known no man by lying with any male: and they brought them unto the camp to Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.
The command was that men, women, and children would be slain with the sword. They did so, except they brought back four hundred young virgins. Didn’t they fall in the category of men, women, and children?
First, verse 10 included women and children without directly mentioning the men, but they would be included in the “inhabitants”. Verse 11 explains how to do it. It includes the males and doesn’t mention the children. It also would indicate that virgins were not to be slain. They brought back four hundred of them. How did they know which ones were virgins? Would they ask them, saying that if they weren’t virgins they would need to be slain with the sword?
In the parable of the sower, the sower sows the seed. The seed represents the Word in that parable. The male sows his seed, the woman receiving it. There is conception and then birth. So the male in the story could represent the teachers, the ones sowing their doctrines. The women who have lain with them are those who receive those doctrines. The children would be spiritual babes and would also be receiving the doctrines, so they didn’t need to be mentioned in verse 11. But the virgins weren’t receiving men’s doctrines.
When the men went through the city with their swords (the Word of God) they would slay the males who were teaching their doctrines and the women and children who were accepting them. The virgins, since they were innocent, wouldn’t need to be slain. They are like the 144,000 of Revelation 7 who were virgins and were sealed from being slain. They could tell which ones were virgins because they wouldn’t have the men’s doctrines, neither as teachers nor as learners.