Deuteronomy 20:13-20

13 and when the Lord your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword.

14 You may, however, take as your booty the women, the children, livestock, and everything else in the town, all its spoil. You may enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the Lord your God has given you.

15 Thus you shall treat all the towns that are very far from you, which are not towns of the nations here.

16 But as for the towns of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive.

17 You shall annihilate them—the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites—just as the Lord your God has commanded,

18 so that they may not teach you to do all the abhorrent things that they do for their gods, and you thus sin against the Lord your God.

19 If you besiege a town for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you must not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them. Although you may take food from them, you must not cut them down. Are trees in the field human beings that they should come under siege from you?

20 You may destroy only the trees that you know do not produce food; you may cut them down for use in building siegeworks against the town that makes war with you, until it falls.

Deuteronomy 20:13-20 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO DEUTERONOMY 20

In this chapter rules are given to be observed in times of war. When a battle was near, a priest was to address the soldiers, and encourage them to fight, De 20:1-4, then the officers were to declare who might return home, De 20:5-9 when an enemy's city was approached, peace was to be proclaimed on certain conditions, which, if accepted of, the inhabitants were to be tributaries and servants, but if not, when taken, all were to be put to the sword, excepting women, children, and cattle, De 20:10-15, but those of the seven nations were to be utterly destroyed, De 20:16-18, and, during a siege, no trees bearing fruit fit for food were to be cut down, De 20:19.