Deuteronomy 20:18

The one Pl. passage in this law, see introd. note.

abominations See on Deuteronomy 7:25; Deuteronomy 12:31; Deuteronomy 17:1.

19 f. Of Sparing the Fruit Trees in a Siege

In a prolonged siege, Israel, while eating of the besieged's fruit-trees, shall not destroy them (Deuteronomy 20:19). Trees which do not yield food may be cut down for siege-works (Deuteronomy 20:20). In the Sg. address.

The practice of cutting down the enemy's fruit trees was common. Several Assyrian kings boast of it: cp. Tiglath Pileser iii. (quoted in E.B.4512): -The plantations of palms which abutted on his rampart I cut down." Both Pompey and Titus cleared away the trees round Jerusalem, the latter for a distance of 90 stadia (Josephus VI. B.J.i. 1, viii. 1, v. B.J.iii. 2). Mohammed destroyed the palms of the Banu Nadir, and justified this in an oracle, Ḳuran lix. See also Doughty Ar. Des.i. 23.

On invading Moab Israel cut down the fruit-trees and stopped the wells, in obedience to a word of Jehovah by Elisha (2 Kings 3:19; 2 Kings 3:25). That prophet, therefore, and his biographer cannot have known of this law of D, which shows a real advance in the ethics of warfare. Further on Sieges see O. C. Whitehouse art. -Siege" in E.B.; Billerbeck, Festungsbau im Alten Orient.