📜WEB · Deuteronomy 20:19
What does Deuteronomy 20:19 mean?
"When you shall besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them; for you may eat of them. You shall not cut them down; for is the tree of the field man, that it should be besieged by you?"
— Deuteronomy 20:19 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
But of the cities of these peoples, that Yahweh your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes;
but you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite; as Yahweh your God has commanded you;
that they not teach you to follow all their abominations, which they have done to their gods; so would you sin against Yahweh your God.
When you shall besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them; for you may eat of them. You shall not cut them down; for is the tree of the field man, that it should be besieged by you?
Only the trees that you know are not trees for food, you shall destroy and cut them down. You shall build bulwarks against the city that makes war with you, until it falls.
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