What Does Deuteronomy 20:20 Mean?
Only the trees you perceive are not trees for food, those you shall ruin and cut down, and you shall build a ramp against the city that makes war with you, until it is trodden down.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Only the trees which thou knowest that they be not trees for meat, thou shalt destroy and cut them down; and thou shalt build bulwarks against the city that maketh war with thee, until it be subdued.THE KEY
Even in a siege, a tree that feeds life is not interchangeable with wood that feeds war.
THE MEANING
Even amid the drive to bring a city down, food-bearing trees are distinguished from material for war. The verse holds two realities together: a siege consumes what can serve it, while nourishment remains more than military supply.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Whatever can be used to secure victory may be spent, including what sustains life.
THE ROOT
מַאֲכָל
ma'akhal
GROWS FROM
אכל
ʾ-k-l
Eat, consume
“trees for food” in this verse is ma'akhal. The Hebrew word for food grows from the verb “to eat,” naming the tree by the nourishment it provides. The KJV’s “meat” means food here, and that edible yield is what sets these trees apart from material for the siege.
ALSO GROWS
akhal: Eat, consume
אָכַל
The verb shows the action contained in מַאֲכָל: this tree yields what can be eaten.
okhel: Food, nourishment
אֹכֶל
This related noun keeps the focus on provision, the quality that makes the tree distinct in the verse.
רִדְתָּהּ
redetah
GROWS FROM
ירד
y-r-d
Descend, go down
“trodden down” in this verse is redetah. The Hebrew phrase pictures the city’s going down, giving “subdued” a physical image of descent. The same root can describe coming down, so English hides the shared movement beneath the city’s defeat.
ALSO GROWS
yarad: Descend, go down
יָרַד
This verb is the root form behind the city’s “going down” in the verse.
yeridah: Descent, going down
יְרִידָה
This related noun makes the physical direction in the idea of being subdued easier to see.
THE PATTERN
A tree’s life-giving yield marks it as provision, not interchangeable material.
And God said, "Look, I have given you every seed-bearing plant upon the face of all the earth, and every tree bearing fruit with seed in it. It shall be yours for food."When you press in against a city for many days, making war against it to seize it, you shall not ruin its trees by lifting an axe against them, for from them you shall eat, and you shall not cut them down. For is the tree of the field human, that it should come before you in the siege?In the middle of its broad way, and on either bank of the river, is the tree of life, bearing twelve fruits, giving back its fruit with each moon. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.THE THREAD
And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built.The word behind “subdued” comes from ירד (yarad), “descend, go down”; Genesis uses the same root when the LORD “came down” to see a city and tower. That shared root opens “subdued” into a physical image: here, the city goes down under the siege.
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