When you shall besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy the trees thereof by wielding an ax against them: for you may eat of them, and you shall not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man's life) to employ them in the siege:
Read Chapter 20
Clement Of Alexandria
AD 215
The Logos in his goodness, richly equipped with love of humankind, teaches that it is not right to cut down cultivated trees, still less to cut crops for purposes of vandalism before harvest, and even less still to destroy, root and branch, cultivated fruit, whether of the land or of the soul. It does not even allow the razing of enemy land. Yes, and farmers find their profit from the law. It enjoins them to take care of their young trees right to their third year, pruning them to prevent them being oppressed by excessive weight and being weakened through shortage of a nourishment spread too thinly. It enjoins them to trench and dig around them to prevent parasites from inhibiting their growth. It does not allow the harvesting of immature fruit from immature trees. After three years, the first fruits are to be consecrated to God after the tree has reached maturity.
Not a man. Hebrew, "the tree of the field, man. "Which the Protestants supply, "is man's life to employ them in the siege. "Septuagint, "is the tree. A man? "(Haydock)
We might render the Hebrew, "as for the tree of the field, it shall come to thy assistance in the siege "ver. 20. (Haydock)
They are "like men "and may be of great service in making warlike engines. They are here contrasted with fruit-trees, which must not be cut down, unless they be in the way, or of service to the enemy. All other things of the same nature, as houses, corn, water, must be spared, as well as those who do not bear arms. Yet God ordered the houses to be demolished in the war with the Moabites, 4 Kings iii. 19. (Calmet)
Pythagoras enjoins his disciples not to spoil a fruit tree. Jamblic and the greatest generals have complied with this advice. (Calmet)
