Deuteronomy 20:20

20 But you may destroy the trees that you know do not produce fruit. Use them to build siege works against the city that is waging war against 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 so that they cannot teach you to do all the detestable things they do for their gods, and so cause you to sin against the LORD your God.

19 When you lay siege to a city for an extended time while fighting against it to capture it, you must not destroy its trees by putting an axe to them, because you can eat their fruit. You must not cut them down. Are the trees of the field human, that you should besiege them?

20 But you may destroy the trees that you know do not produce fruit. Use them to build siege works against the city that is waging war against you, until it falls.