Cheshbono shel Olam[1]
על-כן יאמרו המשלים באו חשבון תבנה ותכונן עיר סיחון
Therefore, the conquerors say: “Let’s go to the city of Cheshbon; the city of Sichon should be built and established”[2]
After the Jews successfully captured the city of Cheshbon, the city of King Sichon, the Torah tells us a vague verse. It describes what “the conquerors”[3] said after the Jews’ victory. Perhaps since it is unclear why we need to know this information, our Sages interpreted[4] the verse in a homiletic way: “The conquerors”, this is referring to those who have conquered their yetzer hara, their evil inclination. They say, “let’s go to Cheshbon”, this refers to calculating the accounting of the world: the loss incurred when fulfilling a mitzvah versus its gains, and the gains of transgressing a prohibition versus its losses[5].