Deuteronomy 20:10-20: a reflection

10When you draw near to a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace to it. 11It shall be, if it gives you answer of peace and opens to you, then it shall be that all the people who are found therein shall become forced laborers to you, and shall serve you. 12If it will make no peace with you, but will make war against you, then you shall besiege it. 13When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, you shall strike every male of it with the edge of the sword; 14but the women, the little ones, the livestock, and all that is in the city, even all its plunder, you shall take for plunder for yourself. You may use the plunder of your enemies, which the LORD your God has given you. 15Thus you shall do to all the cities which are very far off from you, which are not of the cities of these nations. 16But of the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes; 17but you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, as the LORD your God has commanded you; 18that they not teach you to follow all their abominations, which they have done for their gods; so would you sin against the LORD your God. 19When you shall besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them; for you may eat of them. You shall not cut them down, for is the tree of the field man, that it should be besieged by you? 20Only the trees that you know are not trees for food, you shall destroy and cut them down. You shall build bulwarks against the city that makes war with you, until it falls.

Among the laws about warfare in Deuteronomy is a striking command about restraint. When you besiege a city a long time, God says, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them, for you may eat of them. Is the tree of the field a man, that it should be besieged by you? Even in the destruction of war, the fruit trees were to be spared, for they were not the enemy, and they gave food that would be needed. God commanded restraint even in the midst of conflict.

Notice the reasoning: the tree is not the enemy, and it gives life. Even when a city was under siege, its fruit trees, which had done no wrong and would provide food, were not to be needlessly destroyed. God's concern reached even to the trees, that in the fury of war, what was good and life-giving and not itself the enemy should be spared. There was to be restraint, a limit on the destruction, even against a foe.

That principle of restraint speaks beyond ancient warfare. In our own conflicts and struggles, there is a temptation to destroy indiscriminately, to lash out and lay waste to everything in our path, harming even what is good and not our enemy in the heat of the fight. But God commands restraint: do not destroy the fruit trees; do not lay waste what is good and life-giving simply because you are in a conflict. When you are in a struggle or a conflict, guard against needless destruction. Do not, in the heat of it, harm what is good and not your enemy, the relationships, the goodwill, the life-giving things that get trampled when we lash out. Show restraint even in conflict; spare the fruit trees, and do not destroy what is good in the fury of the fight.

Lord, among your laws of warfare you commanded restraint: not to destroy the fruit trees when besieging a city, for the tree was not the enemy and gave food that would be needed. Let that principle of restraint speak to me. In my own conflicts and struggles, there is a temptation to destroy indiscriminately, to lash out and lay waste to everything in my path, harming even what is good and not my enemy in the heat of the fight. But you command restraint: do not destroy the fruit trees; do not lay waste what is good and life-giving simply because I am in a conflict. When I am in a struggle, guard me against needless destruction. Keep me from harming, in the heat of it, what is good and not my enemy, the relationships, the goodwill, the life-giving things that get trampled when I lash out. Help me show restraint even in conflict, sparing the fruit trees, and not destroying what is good in the fury of the fight. Give me restraint, Lord.