Deuteronomy 20:19-20

20:19 If you besiege a city for a long time while attempting to capture it, ¹  you must not chop down its trees, ²  for you may eat fruit ³  from them and should not cut them down. A tree in the field is not human that you should besiege it! ⁴  20:20 However, you may chop down any tree you know is not suitable for food, ⁵  and you may use it to build siege works ⁶  against the city that is making war with you until that city falls.

Deuteronomy 28:55

28:55 He will withhold from all of them his children’s flesh that he is eating (since there is nothing else left), because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict ⁷  you in your villages.

Deuteronomy 28:57

28:57 and will secretly eat her afterbirth ⁸  and her newborn children ⁹  (since she has nothing else), ¹⁰  because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict you in your villages.

¹ tn Heb “to fight against it to capture it.”

² tn Heb “you must not destroy its trees by chopping them with an iron” (i.e., an ax).

³ tn Heb “you may eat from them.” The direct object is not expressed; the word “fruit” is supplied in the translation for clarity.

⁴ tn Heb “to go before you in siege.”

⁵ tn Heb “however, a tree which you know is not a tree for food you may destroy and cut down.”

⁶ tn Heb “[an] enclosure.” The term מָצוֹר (matsor) may refer to encircling ditches or to surrounding stagings. See R. de Vaux, Ancient Israel, 238.

⁹ tn Heb “besiege,” redundant with the noun “siege.”

¹³ tn Heb includes “that which comes out from between her feet.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “her sons that she will bear.”

¹⁵ tn Heb includes “in her need for everything.”