Deuteronomy 20:20

20 The exception can be those trees which don't produce food; you can chop them down and use the timbers to build siege engines against the town that is resisting you until it falls.

Deuteronomy 20:20 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 20:20

Only the trees which thou knowest that they be not trees for
meat Which might be known not only by their not having fruit upon
them, but by other tokens, and even at a time of year when there was no fruit on any, which might be sometimes the season of a siege:

thou shalt destroy and cut them down;
if so to do was of any disservice to the enemy, or of any service to them, as follows; they had a liberty to destroy them if they would:

and thou shall build bulwarks against the city that maketh war, until
it be subdued;
build bulwarks of the trees cut down, and raise batteries with them, or make machines and engines of the wood of them, to cast stones into the city to annoy the inhabitants of it, in order to make them surrender, and until they do it. All this may be an emblem of the axe being to be laid to fruitless trees in a moral and spiritual sense; and of trees of righteousness, laden with the fruits of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, being preserved and never to be cut down or rooted up; see ( Matthew 3:10 ) ( Isaiah 60:3 ) ( Matthew 15:13 ) .

Deuteronomy 20:20 In-Context

18 This is so there won't be any of them left to teach you to practice the abominations that they engage in with their gods and you end up sinning against God, your God.

19 When you mount an attack on a town and the siege goes on a long time, don't start cutting down the trees, swinging your axes against them. Those trees are your future food; don't cut them down. Are trees soldiers who come against you with weapons?

20 The exception can be those trees which don't produce food; you can chop them down and use the timbers to build siege engines against the town that is resisting you until it falls.