Deuteronomy 20:19

כִּֽי־תָצוּר אֶל־עִיר יָמִים רַבִּים לְֽהִלָּחֵם עָלֶיהָ לְתָפְשָׂהּ לֹֽא־תַשְׁחִית אֶת־עֵצָהּ לִנְדֹּחַ עָלָיו גַּרְזֶן כִּי מִמֶּנּוּ תֹאכֵל וְאֹתוֹ לֹא תִכְרֹת כִּי הָֽאָדָם עֵץ הַשָּׂדֶה לָבֹא מִפָּנֶיךָ בַּמָּצֽוֹר׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

כִּֽי־תָצ֣וּר אֶל־עִיר֩ יָמִ֨ים רַבִּ֜ים לְֽהִלָּחֵ֧ם עָלֶ֣יהָ לְתָפְשָׂ֗הּ לֹֽא־תַשְׁחִ֤ית אֶת־עֵצָהּ֙ לִנְדֹּ֤חַ עָלָיו֙ גַּרְזֶ֔ן כִּ֚י מִמֶּ֣נּוּ תֹאכֵ֔ל וְאֹת֖וֹ לֹ֣א תִכְרֹ֑ת כִּ֤י הָֽאָדָם֙ עֵ֣ץ הַשָּׂדֶ֔ה לָבֹ֥א מִפָּנֶ֖יךָ בַּמָּצֽוֹר׃

Greek (Septuagint)

Ἐὰν δὲ περικαθίσῃς περὶ πόλιν μίαν ἡμέρας πλείους ἐκπολεμῆσαι αὐτὴν εἰς κατάλημψιν αὐτῆς, οὐχὶ ἐξολεθρεύσεις τὰ δένδρα αὐτῆς ἐπιβαλεῖν ἐπ’ αὐτὰ σίδηρον. ἀλλ’ ἢ ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ φάγῃ, αὐτὸ δὲ οὐκ ἐκκόψεις. μὴ ἄνθρωπος τὸ ξύλον τὸ ἐν τῷ ἀγρῷ, εἰσελθεῖν ἀπὸ προσώπου σου ἐς τὸν χάρακα,.

Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0

Latin (Vulgate)

Quando obsederis civitatem multo tempore, et munitionibus circumdederis ut expugnes eam, non succides arbores, de quibus vesci potest, nec securibus per circuitum debes vastare regionem: quoniam lignum est, et non homo, nec potest bellantium contra te augere numerum.

Spanish

Cuando asedies una ciudad por largo tiempo, haciendo guerra contra ella para tomarla, no destruirás sus árboles blandiendo un hacha contra ellos, porque podrás comer de ellos. No los cortarás, porque ¿es hombre el árbol del campo, para que sea asediado por ti?

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Cuando pusieres cerco á alguna ciudad, peleando contra ella muchos días para tomarla, no destruyas su arboleda metiendo en ella hacha, porque de ella comerás; y no la talarás, que no es hombre el árbol del campo para venir contra ti en el cerco.

English

When you lay siege to a city for an extended time while fighting against it to capture it, you must not destroy its trees by putting an axe to them, because you can eat their fruit. You must not cut them down. Are the trees of the field human, that you should besiege them?

✦ What the text says

Summary

This verse regulates conduct during a prolonged siege: when Israel besieges a city to capture it, the besiegers are forbidden from destroying the city's fruit-bearing trees by axe, because those trees provide food. The verse closes with a rhetorical question comparing the tree of the field to a human being, tied to the image of "coming" against the besieger in the siege.

Key words

tash.Chit ("you will destroy", H7843) — hiphil (causative) imperfect, second person masculine: an active, ongoing/future prohibition against causing the tree's destruction.
'e.Tza ("tree[s]", H6086H) — masculine singular construct with suffix "her" (the city's), forming "tree of it/her": the trees are grammatically bound to the besieged city.
ha ("¿", H9008) — interrogative particle attached to 'a.Dam, converting the following clause into a question rather than a statement.
'a.Dam ("human", H0120G) — masculine singular noun, subject of the interrogative clause comparing the field's tree to a person.
la.Vo' ("go/come", H0935N) — qal infinitive, expressing purpose or result, linked to "before you" and "in the siege," describing motion toward or away from the besieger.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the conditional particle ki ("if", H3588A) governing ta.Tzur ("you will lay siege", H6696A), setting a temporal-conditional frame: "if you besiege a city many days." The prohibition itself uses lo' + imperfect (tash.Chit), a standard negative-imperfect construction expressing durative prohibition, applied to 'et-'etzah ("its tree", object-marked). The purpose clauses le.hilachem and le.tafesah (both infinitives with le-) explain why the siege occurs — "to fight against it, to capture it" — without yet addressing the trees.

The final clause, ki ha-'adam 'etz ha-sadeh la.vo' mi.paneikha ba.matzor, is structurally unusual: the interrogative ha prefixed to 'adam signals a question embedded without an explicit question mark in the consonantal text, read here as "for is the tree of the field human, to come before you into the siege?" The construct chain 'etz ha-sadeh ("tree of the field") is the grammatical subject being questioned against 'adam. The infinitive la.vo' with the preposition mi-panekha ("from before you") and ba-matzor ("in the siege") attaches a purpose/result nuance — the tree is being asked, rhetorically, whether it would "come" as a combatant into the confrontation.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders the closing rhetorical question as a flat declarative statement: "quoniam lignum est, et non homo" ("because it is wood, and not man"), removing the interrogative form present via ha in the Hebrew and adding an explanatory clause about not increasing "the number of those fighting against you," which has no lexical counterpart in the Hebrew word list given. The LXX preserves a negated form ("μὴ ἄνθρωπος τὸ ξύλον," "surely the tree is not a human") and connects the phrase "εἰσελθεῖν ἀπὸ προσώπου σου ἐς τὸν χάρακα" ("to enter from before you into the entrenchment") directly to the tree, differing from the Hebrew's more ambiguous syntactic attachment of la.vo' ("to come").

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.