Deuteronomy 20:10

When thou drawest nigh Cp. Deuteronomy 20:2.

to fight against it With another preposition the same vb is used of attacking or besieging a city, Judges 9:45; 1 Samuel 23:1, etc.

proclaim peace unto it Judges 21:13. Negotiations between enemies on the eve of battle were frequent (e.g. Judges 11:12-18; 1 Kings 20:2 ff.) and it cannot have been unusual for besiegers to offer to the besieged their lives on condition of surrender (2 Kings 18:28 ff.). For a case among the Arabs see Doughty Ar. Des.II. 429.

The humanity here enjoined by D must be estimated in the light of the ḥerem, according to which for religious reasons heathen enemies were never to be spared. The injunction therefore is not so much a mitigation of the rigours common in Semitic warfare as a qualification of the religious zeal with which Israel (like Islam) fought their foes. For an instance in which after a siege had begun a Jewish besieger listened favourably to the petitions of the besieged see 1Ma 13:43 ff. (Simon at Gezer).