Deuteronomy 9:17
threw <07993 05921> [cast them.]
Moses might have done this through distress and anguish of spirit, on beholding their abominable idolatry and dissolute conduct; or probably he did it emblematically, and perhaps by the direction of God; intimating thereby, that as by this act of his the tables were broken in pieces, on which the Law of God was written, so they, by their present conduct, had made a breach in the covenant, and broken the laws of their Maker and Sovereign.
Deuteronomy 21:19
bring <03318> [and bring.]
Deuteronomy 22:28
Deuteronomy 20:19
chop down .............. cut ... down <07843 03772> [thou shalt not.]
trees ................ tree <06086> [for the tree, etc. or, for, O man, the tree of the field is to be employed in the siege.]
The original is exceedingly difficult. The LXX. has it, "Is the tree in the field a man, to enter the trench before thee?" The Latin Vulgate: "For it is a tree, and not a man, neither can it increase the number of those who war against thee;" Onkelos, "For the tree of the field is not as a man, that it should come against thee in the siege;" and to the same purpose the Arabic, Philo, and Josephus who say, "If trees could speak, they would cry out, that it is unjust that they, who were no cause of the war, should suffer the miseries of it." However rendered, the sense is sufficiently clear: and it is a merciful provision to spare all the fruit trees for the support of both the besieged and besiegers.
<0935> [to employ, etc. Heb. to go from before thee.]
