Fruit Trees

The UPDV scriptures place a single, sharp restriction on warfare around fruit trees: a besieging army may build whatever siegeworks it needs from the surrounding forest, but the trees that bear food for the inhabitants are off-limits to the ax. The rule is given at Deuteronomy 20, in the same chapter that lays out the rest of Israel's siege protocols.

Spare the Trees that Feed

The first verse states the prohibition and reasons for it from the trees themselves. "When you will besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, you will not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them; for you may eat of them, and you will not cut them down; for is the tree of the field man, that it should be besieged of you?" (Dt 20:19). The fruit tree is set apart from the city's combatants — it has no part in the war, and the besieging army may eat from it during the siege itself.

Cut Only What Cannot Feed

The second verse names what the army may use. "Only the trees of which you know that they are not trees for food, you will destroy and cut them down; and you will build bulwarks against the city that makes war with you, until it falls" (Dt 20:20). The non-fruit-bearing trees become bulwarks; the fruit-bearing trees stay rooted. The siege may grind on until the city falls, but the orchard outside its walls survives the war.