Commentary
Old Testament : Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
Joshua
Judges
Ruth
1 Samuel
2 Samuel
1 Kings
2 Kings
1 Chronicles
2 Chronicles
Ezra
Nehemiah
Esther
Job
Psalms
Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
The Song of Songs
Isaiah
Jeremiah
Lamentations
Ezekiel
Daniel
Hosea
Joel
Amos
Obadiah
Jonah
Micah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi
![](images/minus.gif)
Text -- Deuteronomy 20:11-20 (NET)
![](images/arrow_open.gif)
Strongs On/Off
Context
20:11 If it accepts your terms and submits to you, all the people found in it will become your slaves .
20:12 If it does not accept terms of peace but makes war with you, then you are to lay siege to it.
20:13 The Lord your God will deliver it over to you and you must kill every single male by the sword .
20:14 However , the women , little children , cattle , and anything else in the city – all its plunder – you may take for yourselves as spoil . You may take from your enemies the plunder that the Lord your God has given you.
20:15 This is how you are to deal with all those cities located far from you, those that do not belong to these nearby nations .
Laws Concerning War with Canaanite Nations
20:16 As for the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is going to give you as an inheritance , you must not allow a single living thing to survive .
20:17 Instead you must utterly annihilate them– the Hittites , Amorites , Canaanites , Perizzites , Hivites , and Jebusites – just as the Lord your God has commanded you,
20:18 so that they cannot teach you all the abhorrent ways they worship their gods , causing you to sin against the Lord your God .
20:19 If you besiege a city for a long time while attempting to capture it, you must not chop down its trees , for you may eat fruit from them and should not cut them down . A tree in the field is not human that you should besiege it!
20:20 However , you may chop down any tree you know is not suitable for food , and you may use it to build siege works against the city that is making war with you until that city falls .
![](images/advanced.gif)
![](images/advanced.gif)
![](images/advanced.gif)
Names, People and Places, Dictionary Themes and Topics
![](images/arrow_open.gif)
Names, People and Places:
Dictionary Themes and Topics:
Moses |
Siege |
War |
CRITICISM |
Amorites |
ACCURSED |
DEUTERONOMY |
BOOTY |
Horticulture |
Fruit Trees |
Fort |
Massacre |
Canaanites |
Captive |
Ecology |
Servant |
Perizzites |
Hivites |
Jebusites |
Siegeworks |
more
![](images/cmt_minus_head.gif)
expand allCommentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes
NET Notes: Deu 20:11 Heb “become as a vassal and will serve you.” The Hebrew term translated slaves (מַס, mas) refers either to Israelites wh...
![](images/cmt_minus.gif)
![](images/cmt_minus.gif)
![](images/cmt_minus.gif)
NET Notes: Deu 20:17 Jebusite. These people inhabited the hill country, particularly in and about Jerusalem (cf. Num 13:29; Josh 15:8; 2 Sam 5:6; 24:16).
![](images/cmt_minus.gif)
![](images/cmt_minus.gif)
![](images/cmt_minus.gif)