2 Kings 3:18-19
18 And this is but a light thing in the sight of the LORD: he will deliver the Moabites also into your hand.
19 And ye shall smite every fenced city, and every choice city, and shall fell every good tree, and stop all wells of water, and marb every good piece of land with stones.
Didn’t Israel violate the law of warfare by destroying fruit trees?
PROBLEM: Moses had commanded the armies of Israel about their enemy’s land saying, “You shall not destroy its trees” (Deuteronomy 20:19). However, here in 2 Kings they were instructed to “cut down every good tree.”
SOLUTION: Some scholars believe that the Deuteronomy law applies only to using fruit trees for siege-works, since it says “do not cut them down to use in the siege” (Deuteronomy 20:19). This fits with the fact that Deuteronomy explicitly states that the reason for not destroying fruit trees was that “the tree of the field is man’s food” (Deuteronomy 20:19).