Deuteronomy 20:1-20

How do the warfare laws distinguish encouragement, surrender, destruction, and restraint?

Berean Standard Bible

1 When you go out to war against your enemies and see horses, chariots, and an army larger than yours, do not be afraid of them; for the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, is with you. 2 When you are about to go into battle, the priest is to come forward and address the army, 3 saying to them, “Hear, O Israel, today you are going into battle with your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or afraid; do not be alarmed or terrified because of them. 4 For the LORD your God goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.” 5 Furthermore, the officers are to address the army, saying, “Has any man built a new house and not dedicated it? Let him return home, or he may die in battle and another man dedicate it. 6 Has any man planted a vineyard and not begun to enjoy its fruit? Let him return home, or he may die in battle and another man enjoy its fruit. 7 Has any man become pledged to a woman and not married her? Let him return home, or he may die in battle and another man marry her.” 8 Then the officers shall speak further to the army, saying, “Is any man afraid or fainthearted? Let him return home, so that the hearts of his brothers will not melt like his own.” 9 When the officers have finished addressing the army, they are to appoint commanders to lead it. 10 When you approach a city to fight against it, you are to make an offer of peace. 11 If they accept your offer of peace and open their gates, all the people there will become forced laborers to serve you. 12 But if they refuse to make peace with you and wage war against you, lay siege to that city. 13 When the LORD your God has delivered it into your hand, you must put every male to the sword. 14 But the women, children, livestock, and whatever else is in the city—all its spoil—you may take as plunder, and you shall use the spoil of your enemies that the LORD your God gives you. 15 This is how you are to treat all the cities that are far away from you and do not belong to the nations nearby. 16 However, in the cities of the nations that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 For you must devote them to complete destruction —the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has commanded you, 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.

What is the context?

The priest encourages Israel by recalling the Lord’s deliverance from Egypt. Officers then announce exemptions for unfinished household commitments and fear, before commanders lead the army. The text recognizes concrete human concerns even as it calls for confidence in the Lord.

The terms for distant cities distinguish acceptance of peace, which brings forced labor, from refusal and battle, followed by killing males and taking captives and plunder. The nations in the promised inheritance are treated more severely, with destruction rather than survivors who would teach idolatry. These are violent commands, and the offered peace itself includes subjection rather than equal freedom.

The siege rules nevertheless forbid destroying fruit-bearing trees for military works, distinguishing them from nonfruit trees. The chapter combines severe judgment with stated limits; neither part should be omitted to make its warfare sound harmless or unlimited.

How is this passage commonly understood?

Wesley limits the household exemptions to wars permitted rather than specifically commanded, a distinction not spelled out in the opening list itself. Maimonides, Kings and Wars 6:1 and 6:4, applies the peace offer to both kinds of war and reads the severe destruction as applying to those who refuse the required settlement. His reading includes subjection and acceptance of specified obligations, not a modern offer between equal independent states.

The Westminster Confession 19.4 treats Israel’s national judicial laws as distinct from laws directly binding other societies. The commands here are not an open commission for private violence or an assurance that any present army claiming God’s support will win. The tree restriction also cannot be expanded into a complete modern rule for every environmental or military question.

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