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FRUIT TREES AS COVENANTAL TESTIMONIES When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them: for thou mayest eat of them, and thou shalt not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man's life) to employ them in the siege: Only the trees which thou knowest that they be not trees for meat, thou shalt destroy and cut them down; and thou shalt build bulwarks against the city that maketh war with thee, until it be subdued (Deut. 20:19-20).
The theocentric principle undergirding this law is the dominion covenant (Gen. 1:26-28).(1) Man has been placed over nature by God to exercise dominion in God's name, on God's behalf, and in terms of God's Bible-revealed law. In this hierarchical arrangement, God is sovereign as the absolute owner of the creation. He is the owner because He is the creator. Man serves God as a steward. He is a mediator: he represents God to the creation; he also represents the creation to God. Neither man nor the creation is autonomous. Both are under God's law. Both are judged in terms of God's law (Gen. 3).
This law applied to the people of the land when they were operating outside the land. This creates a problem of interpretation. Was this law bounded by the Mosaic Covenant? Yes. Does it still apply today? Not strategically. Armies are not required by God to maintain a siege until the enemy surrenders. Under the Mosaic Covenant, they were. "And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it: And when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword" (Deut. 20:12-13). Also, not tactically: enemy nations no longer can hide inside walled cities. There are no more walled cities. Gunpowder technology has removed them.
But there is one aspect of this law that does still hold: the role of fruit-bearing trees in the dominion covenant.
The Dominion Covenant There is a hierarchy in the dominion covenant: God > man > nature. In this hierarchy, man serves God, while nature serves man. God is not dependent on either man or nature. Man is dependent on both God and nature. Man reflects God as a unique creature who is made in God's image. He rules over nature because he is different from nature: made in God's image. But he is also a creature. He is part of an interdependent creation. He is required by God to acknowledge his two-way dependence and his two-way responsibility: upward and downward.
This law of warfare reminded man that fruit-bearing trees sustain man's life. For this reason, they must not be used to impose man's death. Man relies on fruit-bearing trees to sustain his life and make his life more pleasant; they, in turn, are heavily dependent on man for their cultivation. They can exist apart from man in some environments, but man's care makes them flourish. There is mutual interdependence between man and fruit-bearing trees.
This law makes it clear that holy warfare is not just a means of inflicting death and destruction. It is a means of extending life. Holy warfare is not destruction for destruction's sake. It is destruction for God's sake. There is an element of disinheritance in war, but it is always to be offset by an element of inheritance. Military sanctions are not exclusively negative; they must also be positive. If this is not the case, then the military tactics employed are illegitimate. They testify to illegitimate goals.
Laying Siege Once begun, the siege of a foreign city was supposed to be completed. "Only the trees which thou knowest that they be not trees for meat, thou shalt destroy and cut them down; and thou shalt build bulwarks against the city that maketh war with thee, until it be subdued." When a city refused to covenant with God by surrendering to Israel's holy army, it was doomed unless it covenanted with God by surrendering to Israel's holy priesthood. Unless the men surrendered to God through mass circumcision, all of them would be executed after their defense ended (Deut. 20:13). Once they had been placed under the formal negative sanctions of God, the men of a besieged city were not to be allowed to escape this judgment apart from their complete covenantal surrender. Partial surrender was no longer an option.
This meant that the Israelite army had no choice: it had to maintain the siege until the city fell. This placed a great deal of pressure on the army's commander to find techniques to break through the city's defenses. He might be tempted to cut down all of the trees in the region to use as siege implements. Trees could be used as firewood. They could also be used as siege implements in four ways: as battering rams (including siege towers), as scraping implements to undermine the walls from tunnels dug beneath the walls, as tunnel supports, and to build ladders to scale the walls. Military historian Horst de la Croix writes that "the basic siege methods -- battering, sapping, mining, scaling -- . . . will remain the same throughout the ages."(2) The longer the siege went on, the more depleted the countryside would become, and the more tempting the surviving fruit-bearing trees would become.
The language of the text is clear: the reason why the fruit-bearing trees were protected was that man's life is maintained by these trees. These trees would provide food for Israel's troops. This pointed to the possibility that the siege might last for several seasons. The commander was to acknowledge that he and his men might be there a long time. They were allowed to eat from these trees. A commander who was conducting a winter campaign knew that his army might still be there in spring and summer. Israel's army was to acknowledge that the extension of God's kingdom sometimes takes longer than covenant-keepers would prefer. The siege might take years. The fruit trees would provide a blessing in the time of the harvest. It would be short-sighted to cut them down. It would contribute to a short-run mentality: "If we can't starve these people out in one season or less, it will be time to go home." God was telling the army that they had to stay there and wait until that city surrendered.
The fruit trees would sometimes have been be visible from the walls of the city. The defenders watching on the walls could report back to their officers that the Israelites still had not cut down the fruit trees. This information would have undermined confidence in the leaders of the city. The Israelites were not intending to go home soon. They were prepared to sit and wait for as long as it took to defeat the city. This meant that the Israelites were determined to win. They were willing to invest whatever amount of time it would take to starve out the city. Meanwhile, they would feast on the fruit of the field.
The Imagery of the Siege The trees were outside the boundaries of the city's wall. This wall kept the residents of the city from feasting on the trees that provided life. In relation to the trees, the city's wall was a defensive boundary for the Israelite army. Israel used swords to keep the defiant residents of the city away from the fruit trees that had once sustained them and delighted them. Because the city had not surrendered to Israel when the peace treaty was offered, the men of that city would never again taste the fruit of those trees. The symbolism is obvious: this was analogous to the fiery sword that kept men away from the tree of life in the garden.
Yet the tree of life will again grow in the midst of a garden: the city-garden of the new heaven and new earth. "In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations" (Rev. 22:3). The barrier between covenant-keepers and covenant-breakers will have become absolute. "And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence" (Luke 16:26). The question facing covenant-breaking man is this: Can he somehow cross the barrier to gain access to the tree of life? That was the question facing the men of the besieged city. The answer was yes, but only through covenantal conformity to God through circumcision. They could bring the city under God's protection. They could become Israelites: adopted sons. There was no other way that they would ever again feast on the fruit of the trees that lay outside the walls if Israel obeyed God's laws of warfare.
The imagery here was not of a circumscribed garden separated from the world by a wall. On the contrary, the imagery was a walled enclosure in which death was sure, surrounded by a world in which fruit was sweet. The kingdom of God lay outside the walls of the city; it was defended by the army of God. The kingdom of covenant-breaking man was surrounded. It was under siege. It was strictly defensive. Life lay beyond the walls of the city. The men enclosed by those walls could not gain access to life. The walls that temporarily sustained them from death by the sword also kept them away from the trees of life. Their enemies would feast on the fruit while they, determined not to surrender on terms acceptable to God, would not again taste such fruit. Their enemies would inherit.
Hope in the Future Trees that were visible from the walls testified to those inside the walls that there was hope available, but not on their covenantal terms. There was one way of surrender. The men could circumcise themselves and their sons. They would then throw open the gates of the city to the holy army. They would plead immunity through self-inflicted covenantal wounds. There was risk, of course. The Shechemites had done this, and they had been slaughtered by two sons of Israel (Gen. 34:25). But this had been a great evil for which Jacob was greatly upset. "And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites: and I being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me, and slay me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house" (v. 30).
Could those inside the boundary provided by the wall trust the Israelites not to take advantage of them? Would Israel obey God's law? There was a visible test of Israel's commitment to God's law: fruit trees. If the trees were still standing, then Israel was still honoring God's law. This meant two things: 1) the army of God was dug in for the long haul; 2) there was still hope for the city. Mass circumcision could still gain mercy from the invaders. But the men of the city would have to undergo pain. They would also have to surrender: open gates. They could no longer safely put their trust in walls and gates.
On the other hand, if the fruit trees had been cut down, there was hope of survival in terms of the city's old covenant. This Israelite army was visibly a short-term army. It had not honored God's law. It was willing to consume the trees that would feed it in due season. Here was a reason for those inside the walls to continue their resistance. Why surrender to an army that was there only for the short haul? Resistance offered hope. Surrendering to such an army would be foolish. Such an army was ruthless with life-giving trees; it would probably be ruthless with defenders. Every man inside the city would die. Better to resist to the last man. Better to threaten unacceptable losses for an army that was not there for the long haul, one that was not committed to victory in terms of God's law.
Which would it be: Surrender to God or continued resistance? Which was the wiser course of action? Circumcision might bring permanent peace or it might bring a slaughter. Resistance might bring a military slaughter or it might bring terms of surrender for tribute's sake, the way that some of the Canaanites survived Israel's program of genocide (Josh. 16:10; 17:13). Fruit-bearing trees provided evidence. If they were still standing, this army was serious about God's law. If they had been cut down, this army was not serious about obeying God. It would then be too risky to surrender by mass circumcision. It might be safer to resist longer, hoping for terms of peace based on tribute.
Inheritance and Foreign Policy By allowing the fruit-bearing trees to survive, the army was maintaining the value of the land. For land located close to Israel's borders, this decision would have capitalized Israel's inheritance. It left intact an agricultural inheritance. But for land located far from Israel, the income stream provided by the trees could not be capitalized by Israel. The trees were too far from Jerusalem. The journey to the festivals would be too long. The army dared not annex the city to Israel.
The male residents of the besieged city had to be executed, apart from conversion through circumcision. The women and children had to be brought back to Israel. Who would then take care of the trees? After all, the trees were wealth. If left undefended, such wealth would serve as a beacon: "Come and get it!" A neighboring nation would not leave such wealth to rot. It would invade the empty region. The trees would provide capital for the invaders. This meant that another nation with other gods would inherit what Israel had temporarily conquered. This would bring the invading nation closer to Israel's borders. Therefore, a major foreign policy consideration in deciding whether to place a city under siege was who its neighbors were. If the city bordered a strong nation that could pose a threat to Israel, it would be unwise for Israel to lay siege to it. Why waste Israel's resources in a military operation that might expose the nation to greater danger later on? A short-term military success might be followed by a long-term military disaster. Why strengthen your enemies? Solution: call off the siege before beginning it.
Such a foreign policy would have reduced the risks to short-term raiders who could raid the fringes of Israel's borders without the threat of a siege of their cities, but it would also have reduced the likelihood of full-scale invasion. Weaker cities would have bordered Israel. They might constitute an annoyance to those tribes whose land was on the borders, but these invaders would not have constituted a major threat to the nation.
The preservation of the besieged city's fruit-bearing trees forced foreign policy considerations on Israel. It forced Israel's leaders to count the long-term costs of war. The farther away the city, the less economic incentive there was to conquer it. The more powerful the city's neighbors, the less economic incentive for Israel to lay siege to it. Only if the city submitted to God through circumcision would beginning a siege make sense, and then only in retrospect. This was a high-risk military decision: once the siege began, the decision-making authority to determine who would inherit the fruit trees would move from Israel to the besieged city. Even if Israel won, knocked down the walls, and burned the city, those trees would still be standing: a standing testimony to the fruitfulness of a now-empty land. The land would not stay empty for long.
Ecology and Inheritance This law had ecological implications. The presence of fruit-bearing trees had implications for birds and other fruit-eating beasts of the field. The ecology of the land was to be honored by the invading Israelite army; they were not to become destroyers.
As far as the male residents of the besieged city were concerned, the ecological care shown by the Israelites constituted a guaranteed death sentence on the city. The Israelites' care for God's land meant annihilation for the men of the city. The Israelites were caring for God's land, which meant that they would obey God's law. God's law told them not to pull back from the siege: "Thou shalt build bulwarks against the city that maketh war with thee, until it be subdued." Thus, by extending life to the fruit-bearing trees, Israel's army was extending a death sentence on the city's males.
The general ecological principle announced by this text, namely, that "the tree of the field is man's life," becomes narrowly applied in the context of a siege. The tree of the field is not covenant-breaking man's life. Covenant-breaking man is now locked inside the walls of his city. He may be able to see life from the walls of the city, but he cannot gain access to it. The trees of the field would become life for the covenant-keeping army that was laying siege. The trees would henceforth sustain life for the city's executioners. The life-sustaining properties of the fruit would increase the likelihood of the death of the trees' former owners. That which had sustained life would now indirectly threaten life. This was a matter of inheritance. The Israelite army had inherited the means of life. The forthcoming disinheritance of the men inside the city's walls would now be made even more likely.
A preservationist ecology in the context of God's covenant lawsuit against evil offers life to covenant-keepers and death to covenant-breakers. The benefits of a preservationist ecology must therefore be discussed within the covenantal framework of history. This raises the issue of eschatology. If history brings progressive defeat to covenant-keepers and victory to covenant-breakers, then a preservationist ecology leaves God's enemies as the inheritors. By sustaining the productivity of the earth, the covenant-keeper provides an inheritance to future generations. But if these future generations maintain the ethics of the pre-Flood world or pre-conquest Canaan, then God, through ecological preservation and capitalization by covenant-keepers, will someday offer to His enemies "houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full" (Deut. 6:11). The displacement of covenant-keepers can happen, of course, but only as God's covenantal curse on His people: "Thou shalt plant vineyards, and dress them, but shalt neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them" (Deut. 28:39). But is such a curse permanent in history? Does it characterize covenantal inheritance and disinheritance in history? No.
And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath driven thee, And shalt return unto the LORD thy God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul; That then the LORD thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered thee. If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the LORD thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee: And the LORD thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers. And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live. And the LORD thy God will put all these curses upon thine enemies, and on them that hate thee, which persecuted thee. And thou shalt return and obey the voice of the LORD, and do all his commandments which I command thee this day. And the LORD thy God will make thee plenteous in every work of thine hand, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy land, for good: for the LORD will again rejoice over thee for good, as he rejoiced over thy fathers: If thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, and if thou turn unto the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul (Deut. 30:1-10; emphasis added).(3)
New Testament Applications Unlike all other Mosaic laws, this law was applicable only outside the boundaries of the land. Inside, there could be no mercy shown. This law was not a cross-boundary law; it was a law governing Israel's relations with gentiles in their land. The general principle of this law holds true in every era: "The tree of the field is man's life." Because the general principle is true, this law continues to be in force. What is no longer in force, however, is siege warfare. New technologies have replaced it. Men no longer lay siege to walled cities. The West's importation of Chinese gunpowder ended that ancient military strategy in the fifteenth century: artillery ended the military benefits of city walls. Walled communities have become popular inside crime-ridden cities, but no organized enemy lays continuous siege to them. Also, military units may build defensive barriers, but these units are not cities.
This law is not a law governing the use of explosives. Fruit trees may be destroyed by an artillery barrage or a bombing raid, but this is not the same as using the trees as weapons of war. Also, this is not a law against using chemical defoliants that open up terrain so that enemies cannot hide. The context of the Mosaic law of the siege was an immobile city facing a dug-in army.
In the early medieval era in the West, this law would have applied to a siege. There were walled cities and castles. Armies did come and lay siege to them. They did cut down trees to use as weapons of war. These invading armies should have honored the Mosaic law of the fruit trees.
Conclusion The invading Israelite army was to honor God's law of ecology. This was not for the benefit of the covenant-breakers who were trapped inside their own defensive walls, nor was it for their heirs, who would be carried back to Israel. This was for the benefit of the army itself during the siege and also for those foreign invaders who would occupy the land after the Israelites returned home. These inheritors would be one of three groups, if the Israelite army obeyed God's law: 1) the Israelites themselves, but only if the city was close to Israel's border; 2) the city's existing inhabitants, but only if they submitted to circumcision, becoming Israelites through adoption; 3) the invading army that would march into the unoccupied land after Israel's army had departed. Which outcome was best for Israel? The conversion of the city was best. The residents would henceforth pay a tithe to the Levites. Better that men worship God than that they die in their sins. Better that they surrender unconditionally to God while His siege is still in progress than that they die in the post-siege mass execution. God told Ezekiel: "But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?" (Ezek. 18:21-23).
This Mosaic law of the siege is still in force. The invading army is not to cut down productive trees or, by extension, burn the crops. Warriors are supposed to battle warriors. The idea that warriors are deliberately to wage war on undefended civilians as a way to weaken the opposing army is a perverse strategy. It is also a basic strategy of modern warfare, beginning with the American Civil War: Sherman's march to the sea in 1864-65 and Sheridan's burning of crops in the Shenandoah Valley. These were evil precedents that led to the horrors of World War II's bombing of civilian populations.
Footnotes:
1. Gary North, The Dominion Covenant: Genesis (2nd ed.; Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1987).
2. Horst de la Croix, Military Considerations in City Planning: Fortifications (New York: George Braziller, 1972), p. 18.
3. If taken literally, this implies that the Islam's conquest of North Africa in the seventh century will not be maintained indefinitely. I take it literally.
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