Warfare and Wanton Destruction: A Reexamination of Deuteronomy 20: 19-20 in Relation
to Ancient Siegecraft
Author(s): Jacob L. Wright
Source: Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 127, No. 3 (Fall, 2008), pp. 423-458
Published by: The Society of Biblical Literature
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25610132
Accessed: 23-04-2017 11:54 UTC
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JBL 127, no. 3 (2008): 423-458
Warfare and Wanton Destruction:
A Reexamination of Deuteronomy
20:19-20 in Relation to
Ancient Siegecraft
JACOB L. WRIGHT
wrightjacob@hotmail.com
Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322
To Michael Walzer,
with admiration
In January 1865, Henry Halleck, chief of staff in Washington, D.C., wrote to
Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman in Savannah, Georgia: "Should you capture
Charleston, I hope by some accident the place may be destroyed, and if a little salt
should be sown upon its site it may prevent the growth of future crops of nullifica
tion and secession." In response Sherman wrote: "I will bear in mind your hint as
to Charleston but don't think salt will be necessary. [. . .] The truth is the whole
army is burning with insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South Carolina.
I almost tremble at her fate."1
The horrific devastation of a city and its surrounding territory planned in this
Civil War correspondence is an atrocity common to the history of warfare. For ethi
cists and jurists, these strategies of urbicide (wiping out a city's architectural
memory) and ecocide (ravaging an environment) concern ius in hello,2 and by
This article is based on a lecture at Emory University on November 13, 2006, and was pro
duced in the process of writing my forthcoming book, War and the Formation of Society in Ancient
Israel (Oxford University Press).
1 See E. Milby Burton, The Siege of Charleston 1861-1865 (Columbia: University of South
Carolina Press, 1970), 312-13.
2 For the term "urbicide," see Robert Bevan, The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War
423
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424
Journal of Biblical Literature 127, no. 3 (2008)
proscribing the destruction of fruit trees in siege situations, Deut 20:19-20 has
made a historic contribution to this area of Just War theory and Laws of Armed
Conflict (LOAC). In what follows I examine the Deuteronomic prohibition in the
setting of ancient siege warfare. In particular I challenge some current interpreta
tions according to which the law constitutes a polemic against, or subversion of,
foreign imperial ideology. After situating the practice forbidden by Deuteronomy
in the larger context of military tactics in ancient Western Asia and the eastern
Mediterranean, I attempt to show that the law emerged from an intrasocietal dis
course on acceptable military conduct rather than an intersocietal response to the
warfare of other nations. We begin by looking briefly at the reception of the law in
modern jurisprudence.
I. Hugo Grotius, and Neo-Assyrian Siege Techniques
More than two hundred years before the American Civil War, the Dutch jurist,
philosopher, dramatist, poet, and Christian apologist Hugo Grotius (1583-1645)
published De iure belli ac pacts, a three-volume treatise that stands as a formidable
monument in the history of international law.3 One particularly influential chap
ter of this work exhorts military leaders to display Temperamentum circa vasta
tionem et similia.4 Appealing to the universal authority of ius naturae,5 its pages
quote a wide range of Greco-Roman authors, demonstrating the frequency with
which they condemn the wanton destruction of lands and cities. But it also draws
heavily on Jewish authors such as Philo and Josephus, as well as medieval com
mentators, who censure the gratuitous wasting of property.6 For Grotius, the views
(London: Reaktion, 2007), and for "ecocide," see Aaron Schwabach, "Ecocide and Genocide in
Iraq: International Law, the Marsh Arabs and Environmental Damage in Non-International Con
flicts," Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law & Policy 15 (2003/2004): 1-38.
3 Hugo Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace, Edited and with an Introduction by Richard
Tuck: From the Edition by Jean Barbeyrac (3 vols.; Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005; first pub
lished in 1625). Many legal historians regard this Dutch thinker as the most important figure in
the history of international law; see, e.g., Hersh [Hersch] Lauterpacht, "The Grotian Tradition in
International Law," British Year Book of International Law 23 (1946): 1-53. For an overview of
Grotian scholarship since Lauterpacht, see Renee Jeffery, "Hersch Lauterpacht, the Realist Chal
lenge and 'Grotian Tradition in 20th-century International Relations," European Journal of Inter
national Relations 12 (2006): 223-50.
4 "Concerning Moderation in regard to the spoiling the Country of our Enemies, and such
other Things," the title of ch. 12, book 3.
5 For Grotius, ius humanum consisted of ius naturae, ius civile, and iusgentium (naturale, vol
untarium); see Rights of War and Peace, 1:150-62, as well as N. Konegen, "Zum Staatsverst?ndnis
von Hugo Grotius," Institut f?r Staatswissenschaften 7 (1998): 6-30; and Knud Haakonssen, "Hugo
Grotius and the History of Political Thought," Political Theory 13 (1985): 239-65.
6 Grotius, Rights of War and Peace, 3:1459-62. Grotius maintained a lively correspondence
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Wright: Warfare and Wanton Destruction
425
of this group are imbued with greater authority since they descend directly from
"the Law" (i.e., the Torah). The specific biblical passage to which these writers
appeal is the Deuteronomic prohibition of destroying fruit trees when one besieges
a city, known in Jewish tradition as rpntt>n bl/tib:
When in your war against a city you have to besiege it a long time in order to
capture it, you must not destroy its trees, wielding the ax against them. You may
eat of them, but you must not cut them down. Are trees of the field human to
withdraw before you into the besieged city? Only trees that you know do not
yield food may be destroyed; you may cut them down for constructing siege
works against the city that is waging war on you, until it has been reduced. (Deut
20:19-20 according to TNK)
On the basis of this scriptural text Grotius admonishes his readers:
For if the Creator and supreme LORD of Mankind did not approve, that the
Israelites should lay waste without Necessity the Lands of the People, against
whom he had armed them in an extraordinary Manner, and had made them as
it were the Executors of his terrible Judgments; much more would he not approve
our doing so in ordinary Wars, often unjust, and undertaken without much
Necessity, and wherein the Party who boasts the most of the Justice of his Cause,
is sometimes in the wrong.7
The principles of "proportionality" and "necessity" that Grotius elaborates here, as
well as the norms defended throughout the chapter, had a deep impact on Just War
theory as well as LOAC that proscribe the ruination of civilian infrastructures.8 In
order to measure their influence, one can compare Grotius s arguments to the word
ing of the Geneva and Hague Conventions, the Nuremberg Principles, or the United
Nations Charter.9 On November 5,2006, the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal con
victed Saddam Hussein of crimes against humanity on the basis of a special statute
informed by these and other international conventions.10 One of the five charges
brought against Hussein was significantly the destruction in Dujail of250,000 acres
of fruit trees?precisely the sort of vegetation that the biblical law sought to protect.
with Menasseh ben Israel, and, although often struggling and confused, he read with lively inter
est medieval Jewish commentators in Hebrew. See Phyllis S. Lachs, "Hugo Grotius Use of Jewish
Sources in On the Law of War and Peace" Renaissance Quarterly 30 (1977): 181-200.
7 Grotius, Rights of War and Peace, 3:1459 (italics in original).
8 It was primarily through Grotius that Deut 20:19-20 had its significant impact on mod
ern jurists. De Indis de jure belli by Francisco de Vitoria (1483-1546) refers often to Deuteronomy
20, but never to w. 19-20.
9 Other chapters also had an impact on these conventions. See Peter Haggenmacher, Grotius
et la doctrine de la guerre juste (Paris: Presses universit?res de France, 1983).
10 These include the Iraqi Law Number 7 of 1958, the Iraqi Criminal Code Number 111 of
1969, Iraqi Law Number 10 of 2005, the Statute of the Iraqi Special Tribunal from 2003, as well
as articles 6-8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
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426
Journal of Biblical Literature 127, no. 3 (2008)
By way of De iure belli ac pacts one can thus trace a line of continuity from con
temporary international jurisprudence to the Deuteronomic prohibition.11
With respect to this law in Deuteronomy, many scholars claim that the authors
of the code framed the law as a direct response to Neo-Assyrian military tactics.
The view is not new. Supporting the opinion of Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (1752
1827), August Dillmann wrote in 1886 that the war laws in Deuteronomy 20 aim
to hinder "the wild barbarism and brutality with which many ancient peoples, espe
cially the Assyrians, fought wars," and to affirm the "the higher moral spirit of
Yahwism, namely, the basic principles of leniency and clemency."12 In recent years
this view has won more adherents.13 Thus Eckart Otto avers with respect to w. 19
20: "One could not formulate a more explicit protest against Assyrian warfare,
11 It is important to note that the censure of wanton destruction has a long tradition in Iraq.
The official gazette of Iraq, Al-W?qaV al-Tr?qitya, in which the Statute of Iraqi Special Tribunal
from 2003 was published, has on its front cover an image of Hammurabi's Laws, which in ?59.4-9
specifies heavy punishments for the destruction of property?in particular fruit trees (date palms).
In addition to earlier witnesses to this legal tradition (see, e.g., Jerrold S. Cooper, Sumerian and
Akkadian Royal Inscriptions, vol. 1, Presargonic Inscriptions [New Haven: American Oriental Soci
ety, 1986] 71-72, cols, and x), the Quran enjoins Muslims to abstain from harming trees in a
jihad; see . I. H. Farooqi, Plants of the Quran (Lucknwo: Sidrah, 1992), 25; Al-Hafiz B. A. Masri,
"Islam and Ecology," in Islam and Ecology (ed. Fazlum Khalid and Joanne O'Brien; New York:
Cassel, 1992), 13. Some Muslim armies were accompanied by a special officer whose duties
included ensuring that the soldiers abstained from burning trees. In modern Iraq, orchards
(owned most often by the local elite) surround cities and villages, and the situation does not seem
to have been much different in ancient Babylonia. I thank Nili Wazana for the inspiration to
research Husseins trial in this context.
12 August Dillmann, Numeri, Deuteronomium und Josua (2nd ed.; EHAT; Leipzig: S. Hirzel,
1886), 334-35 (my translation of"... wilde Rohheit u. Grausamkeit, mit welcher von manchen
alten V?lkern, zumal den Assyrern, die Kriege gef?hrt wurden" and "den h?heren sittlichen Geist
des Jahvethums, nam. die Grunds?tze der Milde u. Schonung"). Unfortunately I could not locate
the passage from Eichhorn to which Dillmann refers.
13 See, inter alia, George Adam Smith, The Book of Deuteronomy (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1918), 249; Walther Eichrodt, Theologie des Alten Testaments (Leipzig: Hinrichs,
1933), 64; Gottfried Seitz, Redaktionsgeschichtliche Studien zum Deuteronomium (BWANT 13;
Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1971), 159; Horst Dietrich Preuss, Deuteronomium (EdF 164; Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1982), 120; Joseph Blenkinsopp, "Deuteronomy" in The
Jerome Biblical Commentary (ed. Raymond E. Brown et al.; London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1968),
101-22, here 114; Mark W Hamilton, "The Past as Destiny: Historical Visions in Sam3al and Judah
under Assyrian Hegemony," HTR 91 (1998): 215-50, here 237; and Jeffrey Stackert, "Rewriting the
Torah: Literary Revision in Deuteronomy and the Holiness Legislation" (Ph.D. diss., Brandeis
University, 2006), 175-79, 185. Many appeal to both Assyrian and biblical sources; see, e.g.,
Samuel R. Driver, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Deuteronomy (3rd ed.; ICC; Edin
burgh: T&T Clark, 1951), 236; Karl Kr?mer, Numeri und Deuteronomium (Heilige Schrift f?r das
Leben II/1; Freiburg: Herder, 1955); Fritz Stolz, Jahwes und Israels Kriege (ATANT 60; Zurich:
Theologischer Verlag, 1972), 27-28; and Israel Eph'al, "The Assyrian Ramp at Lachish: Military
and Lexical Aspects" (in Hebrew), Zion 49 (1984): 343 . 28.
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Wright: Warfare and Wanton Destruction
427
which is reflected in their royal inscriptions and palace reliefs."14 In a finely nuanced
essay, Nili Wazana argues similarly to Otto, treating this law as a polemic retort
that "sheds light on the way subjugated peoples countered ideological pressure dur
ing their contacts with the worlds first empire."15 Parallels between the law and
Assyrian sources have even been cited as external evidence for dating the compo
sition of Deuteronomy, and this in turn prompted a book-length response by
Michael G. Hasel.16
Now if it is warranted to claim that the Deuteronomic law originated as a
protest against Neo-Assyrian imperial ideology, and if the law, by way of Grotius s
influential treatise, directly informs our modern war conventions that condemn
wanton destruction, then the line of continuity traced above would extend from
these conventions back to anti-Assyrian imperial polemics!
Although this bold thesis may have a certain appeal in a scholarly context gov
erned by postcolonial discourse, it proves upon closer inspection to be untenable.
The weak link in the chain of reception history is not the one that connects Deuter
onomy 20 to Grotius or Grotius to modern war conventions, but rather the attempt
to interpret the ancient law as a polemic against "the empire." In what follows I
endeavor to demonstrate that this approach fails to account adequately for both
the Deuteronomic text and the Neo-Assyrian sources. I begin by treating the
Deuteronomic law in the broader context of ancient military practices.
II. Intentional and Incidental Destruction in War
For both ancient and modern warfare, one can distinguish two general ways
of jeopardizing civilian infrastructures, or to use a more felicitous term, Life Sup
14 "Deutlicher kann man seinen Protest gegen assyrische Kriegspraxis, die sich in neu
assyrischen K?nigsinschriften und Palastreliefs niedergeschlagen hat, nicht zum Ausdruck
bringen." See Eckart Otto, Krieg und Frieden in der Hebr?ischen Bible und im Alten Orient
(Theologie und Frieden 18; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1999), 100.
15 Nili Wazana, "Are the Trees of the Field Human? A Biblical War Law (Deut. 20:19-20) and
Neo-Assyrian Propaganda," in Treasures on Camels' Humps: Historical and Literary Studies from
the Ancient Near East Presented to Israel Ephal (ed. Mordechai Cogan and Dan3el Kahn; Jerusalem:
Hebrew University Magnes Press, 2008), 275-95, here 295.
16 Michael G. Hasel, Military Practice and Polemic: Israels Laws of Warfare in Near Eastern
Perspective (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 2005). Hasel's argument is based on
what I regard as a misunderstanding, namely, that the authors of Deut 20:19-20 were primarily
opposed to the use of fruit trees to build siege works. Hasel finds evidence of this practice in one
text (the account of the siege of Megiddo by Thutmosis III) and concludes that the law represents
a polemic against military practices from the mid-second millennium. I have reviewed his argu
ment elsewhere (see RBL [http://www.bookreviews.org ] and JBL 124 [2005]: 755-58) and thus
will not focus on it here.
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428
Journal of Biblical Literature 127, no. 3 (2008)
port Systems (LSS).17 The first is incidental or unintentional destruction.18 In
ancient western Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean, populations were especially
hard hit from this side of military conflicts. During lengthy periods of armed con
flict, farmers could not attend to the daily chores of plowing and planting, nursing
the vineyards and olive orchards, or repairing terraces that facilitate agriculture in
hilly terrain.19 This is a case of winning the battle yet losing the war insofar as the
population, prohibited from duties of husbandry, faced severe economic depres
sion, if not famine, long after the enemy had desisted from its assault.
An illustration of this phenomenon is provided by the corpus of seventy-one
letters from Rib-Adda that were found among the Amarna archives (fourteenth
century b.c.e.).20 In one of the letters from this corpus, Rib-Adda writes to the king
of Egypt complaining that he was beleaguered, trapped in his city of Byblos "like a
bird in a cage" (EA 79, 90 et al.). Because of the enemy at his doorstep, planting
was impossible: "For lack of cultivation my field is like a woman without a hus
band" (EA 74, 75, 81).21 This in turn had catastrophic consequences. Rib-Addas
people had sold not only their household objects but also their children for provi
sions (ibid.). The escalation of hostilities made fieldwork impossible, and the threat
of starvation during the winter led to a depopulation of the region. Even if the
inhabitants of Byblos could hold out against their besiegers, famine was inevitable
and would continue to inflict losses for many months after the siege had been
lifted.22
17 LSS are "any natural or human-engineered system that furthers the life of the biosphere
in a sustainable fashion. The fundamental attribute of LSS is that together they provide all of the
sustainable needs required for continuance of life" (The Encyclopaedia of Life Support Systems
[EOLSS], Developed under the Auspices of UNESCO [Oxford: EOLSS Publishers, http://
www.eolss.net]; see "Definition of EOLSS"). Although not referring to the EOLSS, Hasel occa
sionally uses this term in Military Practice.
18 This category includes "collateral damage," a euphemism used since the Vietnam War for
tangential harm caused to civilians and their properly; see USAF Intelligence Targeting Guide (Air
Force Pamphlet 14-210: Intelligence, 1998), 179-80.
19 For ancient Israelite agricultural practices, see Oded Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age
Israel (Boston: ASOR, 2002); and D. C. Hopkins, The Highlands of Canaan: Agricultural Life in the
Early Iron Age (SWBA 3; Sheffield: Almond, 1985).
20 See Mario Liverani, "Rib-Adda, Righteous Sufferer," in Myth and Politics in Ancient Near
Eastern Historiography (ed. Zainab Bahrani and Marc Van de Mieroop; London: Equinox, 2004;
orig. publ. in 1974), 97-124; and W. L. Moran, "Rib-Hadda: Job at Byblos?" in Biblical and Related
Studies Presented to Samuel Iwry (ed. Ann Kort and Scott N. Morschauser; Winona Lake, IN:
Eisenbrauns, 1985), 173-81.
21 This line is widely assumed to reformulate a proverb: "A woman without a husband is like
a field without a farmer."
22 As William L. Moran observes for the Amarna letters, "Interference in the basis of agrar
ian life, flocks and fields, seems to belong to the topos of under siege"' (The Amarna Letters [Bal
timore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987], 298). One could argue that this is a case of an
enemy army intentionally interfering with LSS. The besieging army accordingly meant only to
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Wright: Warfare and Wanton Destruction
429
A more obscure, yet nevertheless important, example of incidental destruction
of LSS is locust plagues. During a time of extended military conflict, fields cannot
be plowed. In western Asia this situation allows grasshopper egg pods, deposited
by the female in the topsoil, to survive and reach maturity. As a consequence, there
is a high chance that the region will face a locust plague in the following year. Such
was the case, for example, in Afghanistan after the war in 2002. For ancient west
ern Asia, locust plagues after lengthy periods of war are evidenced by various let
ters.23 In them we hear of local rulers declaring that their subjects were on the verge
of deserting the region because of locust plagues or of soldiers working in special
pest management task forces assigned to treat the pests.24
LSS were imperiled not only inadvertently but also when armies consciously
selected them as the targets of their aggression. Examples of such wanton destruc
tion are depicted throughout the Bible. In Judg 9:45 Abimelech quells a revolt in
Shechem by razing the city and sowing it with salt. As with regard to Charleston in
the letters quoted above, these ecocidal and urbicidal measures were intended to
have both a strategic and a symbolic impact.25 An act that corresponds to the
destruction of water utilities by modern armies is reported in 2 Kgs 3:19,25, where
the Israelite coalition stops up the wells of the Moabites (see also Gen 26:15, 18).
Direct assaults on agricultural subsistence are depicted at least twice in the book of
Judges. Every time the Israelites had finished sowing, the Midianites would come
up against them to ravage their produce and livestock (Judg 6:3-5).26 Similarly,
weaken the power base of the local ruler by prohibiting agricultural activities. Polyaenus 4.6.20
provides an analogy. This motivation for the siege of Byblos cannot be ruled out, and we must
assume that the aggressor did whatever it took to get the job done. But from other letters it seems
that the besieging army aimed to conquer the city as quickly as possible and was not always aware
of?or at least not satisfied with?the economic effects of the armed conflict.
23 See Karen Radner, "Fressen und gefressen werden: Heuschrecken im Alten Orient," WO
34 (2004): 7-22.
24 The book of Joel contains prophecies of an impending war that seem to describe various
developmental stages of locusts. See, e.g., John A. Thomson, "Joel's Locusts in the Light of Near
Eastern Parallels," JNES 14 (1955): 52-55.
25 Sowing a land with salt-cress or salt was a common punitive measure in ancient western
Asia; see, e.g., Sefire I, A, 35-36 (ANET, 660a); A. K. Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Third and Sec
ond Millennia BC (to 1115 BC) (RIM A 1; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), 183, II. 47
53 (Shalmaneser I); A. K. Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium BC (2 vols.; RIMA
2,3; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), Prisma 87.1: V:99-VI:22 (Tiglath-pileser I); and
Maximilian Streck, Assurbanipal und die letzten assyrischen K?nige bis zum Untergang Nineveh's
(Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1916), 50-58 126-vi 103; all the latter examples use zar? ("sow"). See also
Stanley Gevirtz, "Jericho and Shechem: A Religio-Literary Aspect of City Destruction," VT 13
(1963): 52-62; and Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Claren
don, 1972), 109-11.
26 The tactic of demoralizing one's enemies by repeatedly allowing them to plant and then
destroying the fields is mentioned also by Frontinus 3.3.1.
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430
Journal of Biblical Literature 127, no. 3 (2008)
Samson catches three hundred foxes, ties torches to their tails, and sets them free
to burn the Philistines' grain, vineyards, and olive groves (15:4-5). While these sto
ries may not be historically reliable, they demonstrate that their authors were well
aware of the tactical potential of LSS destruction.
A closer analogy to the law in Deuteronomy is found in another letter from
Rib-Adda to the Egyptian court (EA 91). Here the Phoenician ruler reports that
his enemy had vanquished all his cities and was striving now to take Byblos. While
waiting for the city either to capitulate or deliver a large sum of silver and gold as a
payoff for terminating the siege, he plundered the city's grain and began to cut
down its orchards.27
Deuteronomy 20:19-20 bans the kind of warfare that seems to have been
waged against Byblos insofar as it forbids Israelite armies to destroy fruit trees when
the city they are besieging has not surrendered after an extended period of time.
The law envisions a situation of a protracted siege: "If you besiege a city for many
days (D^Xl D^QO ... ."28 Moreover, it refers to gradual tree destruction that occurs
before the city capitulates. Taken strictly, the law does not refer to conduct after a
siege has been lifted (see v. 20b). Finally, it presupposes that the Israelite armies
would be inclined to cut down orchards when besieging a city.
In order to understand why an Israelite army or Rib-Adda's antagonist would
have felled fruit trees when investing a city, we must take a brief glance at the reper
toire of ancient siege tactics.
III. The Indirect Approach
Before the advent of heavy artillery and explosives, most armies of the first
millennium b.c.e. lacked the logistical and tactical expertise required to breach
fortifications.29 Because one could not always rely on the efficacy of sonic warfare,
27 The condition of the tablet does not permit certainty. See J. A. Knudtzon, Die El-Amarna
Tafeln, vol. 1 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1915), 430-31; as well as R. F. Youngblood, "The Amarna Corre
spondence of Rib-Haddi, Prince of Byblos" (Ph.D. diss., Dropsie College, 1961), 351-54.
William L. Moran suggests that am-ma-qu-ut may have been contaminated by ammassah in line
16 (The Amarna Letters [Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1992], 165). Anson F. Rainey
has confirmed Knudtzons reading of line 14, translating it accordingly: "My orchards [and] my
[field] s were cut down" (private correspondence from March 19, 2007, based on transcription
made on September 22,2003).
28 The protasis is formulated as expected for a situation before the city has been taken; see,
e.g., 1 Kgs 20:1 (m orrVi maw bv nm).
29 The biblical record does recount several cases in which the Israelite armies captured cities
by direct assault. The most explicit example is 2 Sam 20:15 ( V'?rr? DTTTIWD). This con
ventional siege warfare consisted of sapping (undermining), ramming, scaling, and tunneling,
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Wright: Warfare and Wanton Destruction
431
as in the battle of Jericho,30 it was necessary to devise poliorcetic methods with
which an aggressor could either penetrate the city by subterfuge or entice its inhab
itants to come forth.31 Modern military science refers to this type of warfare as "the
indirect approach."32 Although large professional armies such as that of the Assyr
ians did employ this method, they also had the option of frontal assault, which
involved most often the construction of time-consuming siege ramps.33 This con
trasts starkly with Assyria's weaker competitors in the southern Levant. Because
their armies consisted of mostly conscripted soldiers serving short duties, they
relied more heavily on alternatives to frontal assaults.
When beginning a siege, one usually attempted to reason with the city. Thus
the eighth-century b.c.e. Nubian ruler Piye offered his foes an alternative: "'Look,
two ways are before you; choose as you wish. Open [your gates], you live; close,
you die. My majesty will not pass by a closed town!' Then they opened immediately.
which in the first millennium were practiced most effectively by the Assyrians; see the exemplary
work of Israel Ephal, Siege and Its Ancient Near Eastern Manifestations (in Hebrew; Jerusalem:
Magnes, 1996), as well as Erika Bleibtreu, "Five Ways to Conquer a City," BARev 17 (May/June
1991): 52-61, 75; A. Mierzejewski, "La technique de siege assyrienne aux IX-VII siecles avant
notre ere," Etudes et Travaux 7 (1973): 11-20; Walter Mayer, Politik und Kriegskunst der Assyrer
(ALASP 9; M?nster: Ugarit, 1995), 470-74.
30 Although the term is used here tongue-in-cheek, sonic and ultrasonic warfare (USW),
which employs sound-pressure and -power, represents a heavily researched area in modern mil
itary technology and is already employed by many armies in both their lethal and nonlethal arse
nals. Additional biblical examples are found in Judg 7:18-22; 2 Chr 13:15; 20:21-23.
31 The book of Proverbs refers several times to battle tactics (see 11:14; 20:18; 21:22; 24:6;
as well Jer 49:20, 30), and military officers in ancient Israel would likely have undergone formal
training in siegecraft. See Abraham Malamat, "Israelite Conduct of War in the Conquest of
Canaan," in Symposia Celebrating the Seventy-fifth Anniversary of the Founding of the American
Schools of Oriental Research (1900-1975) (ed. Frank Moore Cross; Zion Research Foundation
Occasional Publications; Cambridge, MA: ASOR 1979), 35-55, here 44-45. Because military
knowledge is famously well transmitted through time and space, the Strategemata of Frontinus and
Polyaenus may provide insights into siege tactics employed earlier in western Asia. See Ephal,
Siege; as well as idem, "Ways and Means to Conquer a City," in Assyria 1995: Proceedings of the 10th
Anniversary Symposium of the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, Helsinki, September 7-11, 1995
(ed. Simo Parpola and Robert M. Whiting; Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1997), 49-53.
Ephal refers to I. Starr, Queries to the Sungod: Divination and Politics in Sargonid Assyria (SAA 4;
Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1990), which provides catalogues of stratagems.
32 The concept was introduced by Basil Liddell Hart after World War I; see The Decisive
Wars of History (London: G. Bell & Sons, 1929). Malamat draws on this concept for a quite dif
ferent purpose: to explain the success of the Israelite armies in the conquest of Canaan ("Israelite
Conduct of War, 44-47; see also idem, "How Inferior Israelite Forces Conquered Fortified Canaan
ite Cities," BARev 8 [1982]: 24-35).
33For an illustrative example, see Israel Ephal, "The Assyrian Siege Ramp at Lachish:
Military and Lexical Aspects," Tel Aviv 11 (1984): 60-70.
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432
Journal of Biblical Literature 127, no. 3 (2008)
His majesty entered the town" (line 82).34 Significantly, Deuteronomy 20 com
mands Israel to begin a siege with an offer of peace.35
When a city spurned the offer, it often paid a dear price when it was finally
conquered. Thus, 2 Kgs 15:16 reports that Menahem attacked the region sur
rounding Tiphsah (or Tappuah) and "ripped open all its pregnant women" because
it did not "open" to him. The harsh treatment epitomized by this expression would
have served to encourage other cities to choose the path of peace, rendering future
sieges unnecessary.36 This tactic of psychological warfare seems to have been
employed widely.37
A favorite siege tactic in war legends is the ruse. In addition to the popular tale
of the Trojan horse,38 an older and less familiar Egyptian account tells how Thoth,
a general of Thut-mose III, captured Joppa by hiding armed warriors in two hun
dred large baskets that another three hundred soldiers carried into the Canaanite
city, claiming they contained gifts for the governor.39 While we cannot be sure what
is intended, ruses are also mentioned often in the "Queries" from Sargonid
Assyria 40 Schemes and ambuscades are also popular motifs in biblical siege stories.
Battles involving feigned retreats, decoys, diversionary maneuvers and "liers in
wait" ( ) are depicted in the conquest stories of Ai (Joshua 8), Shechem (Judg
34 Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature: A Book of Readings (3 vols.; 2nd ed.;
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 3:74. See Pnina Galpaz-Feller, "The Victory Stela
of King Piye: The Biblical Perspective on War and Peace," RB 100 (1993): 399-414. His words may
be compared to Jer 38:17-18 (see A. Niccacci, "Egitto e Bibbia: Sulla base della stele di Piankhi,"
LASBF 32 [1982]: 7-58, here 28); Deut 20:11; 30:15-20; 2 Kgs 18:19-35/Isa 36:4-20. That the
Assyrians also negotiated with cities is well documented: In addition to 2 Kings 18, the omen lit
erature refers often to the possibility of taking a city through "kind words" and peaceful negotia
tions. See Starr, Queries, texts 30, 43, 44, 101, 209, 267 as well as Eph'al, Siege, 27. See also A. L.
Oppenheim, "'Siege-Documents' from Nippur," Iraq 17 (1955): 69-89; Grant Frame, "A Siege Doc
ument from Babylon Dating to 649 B.C.," ICS 51 (1999): 101-6.
35 An alternative to offers of peace as means for enticing the enemy out onto the battlefield
is vilification; see 1 Kgs 20:9-12 and (generally in battle) J. J. Gl?ck, "Reviling and Monomachy
as Battle-Preludes in Ancient Warfare," Acta Classica 7 (1964): 25-31; and W. Kendrick Pritchett,
The Greek State at War (5 vols.; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), 2:153-55; Starr,
Queries, texts 29, 43,44, 102.
36 For the possibility that the expression is a hyperbolic trope, see Mordechai Cogan, '"Rip
ping Open Pregnant Women in Light of an Assyrian Analogue," JAOS 103 (1983): 755-57; and
Nadav Naaman, "The Deuteronomist and Voluntary Servitude to Foreign Powers," JSOT 65
(1995): 37-53.
37 See the classic statements by H. W F. Saggs, "Assyrian Warfare in the Sargonid Period,"
Iraq 25 (1963): 149-50, as well as the discussion below.
38 See the and Odyssey 8.487-520.
39 For the story of Thoth, see ANET, 22b-23b. Hans Goedicke shows the connections
between this trick, reminiscent of Ali Baba, and the tale of the Trojan horse ("The Capture of
Joppa," ChrEg43 [1968]: 219-21).
40 See Starr, Queries, texts for nikiltu in the glossary.
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Wright: Warfare and Wanton Destruction
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9:25, 30-45), Gibeah (Judg 20:29-48), the city of the Amalekites (1 Sam 15:5), and
Samaria (2 Kgs 7:12). In the story of the conquest of Bethel (Judg 1:24-25), spies
from the tribe of Joseph make a pact with an informant in order to learn of a secret
ingress into the city.41 Although not mentioning any treachery, the legend of Davids
conquest of Jerusalem seems to allude to the penetration of the city via its water
shaft (2 Sam 5:8).
A water source was not just a vulnerable point of entry; it could also be
blocked in order to force a city's residents to surrender. In preparation for the
onslaught of the enemy, Nahum enjoins the Ninevites not only to strengthen their
forts but also to "draw water for the siege" (3:14). Without a source from which
they could be replenished, reservoirs were ultimately insufficient. Thus, the Rab
shakeh, standing next to one of Jerusalem's water sources, refers to the people sit
ting on the wall as those who are doomed "to drink their own urine" (2 Kgs 18:27).
The tactic of cutting off the municipal water supply was, however, not always
practicable, since wartime experiences could be counted on to make an impact on
urban planning. Hezekiah is said to have created a conduit to direct the waters of
the Gihon into Jerusalem (2 Kgs 20:20; 2 Chr 32:30; see also Isa 22:9-11), presum
ably in preparation for Sennacherib's campaign. Many Iron Age Ha cities in the
Levant invested their resources in ensuring that the municipal water sources were
located within the city walls or at least well protected, making feats like that of
David's army ideal material for the heroic tradition.42 The strategic defense of
waterworks stimulated the creativity of tacticians. Thessalos (fifth century b.c.e.)
reports that in the "First Sacred War" (595-585 b.c.e.), the amphictyons discov
ered the water pipe leading into the city after it was broken by a horse hoof. An
asclepiad named Nebros advised the leaders of the alliance to poison the water with
hellebore roots. The advice was heeded, and the defenders of the city, who had
imbibed the infected water and were seized with obstinate diarrhea, deserted their
posts.43
Most armies, however, were not as lucky as the Amphictyonic League. When
besieging a city, they thus concentrated their attention on other aspects of a city's
41 This story of a loyal insider resembles the Rahab account in Joshua 2 and 7.
42 See Ronny Reich, "The Excavations at the Gihon Spring and Warrens Shaft System in
the City of David," in Ancient Jerusalem Revealed (2nd ed.; ed. Hillel Geva; Jerusalem: Israel Explo
ration Society, 2000), 327-39; Norma Franklin, "Relative and Absolute Chronology of Gallery
629 and the Megiddo Water System: A Reassessment," in Megiddo III: The 1992-1996 Seasons
(ed. Israel Finkelstein et al.; 2 vols.; Monograph Series 18; Tel Aviv: Institute of Archaeology, 2000),
2:515-23; Ronny Reich, "Notes on the Gezer Water System," PEQ 135 (2003): 22-29; Shlomo
Bunimovitz, "The Final Destruction of Beth Shemesh and the pax Assyriaca' in the Jordan She
phelah," TA 30 (2003): 3-26; and finally Zecharia Kallai, "Note on J. A. Emerton: Lines 25-6 of the
Moabite Stone and a Recently-Discovered Inscription," VT56 (2006): 552-53.
43 See also Pausanias (Descr. 10.37.5), Frontinus (Str. 3.2.11) and Polyaenus (Str. I), as well
as the discussion in A. Mayor, Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Biological and
Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World (Woodstock: Duckworth, 2003), 100-101.
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434
Journal of Biblical Literature 127, no. 3 (2008)
LSS, such as the fields and grain reserves. The aforementioned Rib-Adda corre
spondence from the Amarna archives describes repeatedly how the enemy had
robbed the grain of Byblos in an attempt to force its surrender (see esp. EA 85).44
This tactic too was not always feasible: granaries could be situated within the
municipal fortifications, and, because of logistical problems, sieges were difficult to
conduct during the harvest season.45 One therefore turned to the most vulnerable
target of a city: its fruit trees.
IV. Destruction of Fruit Trees in Siege Warfare
Fruit trees represented a precious component of LSS in ancient western Asia
and the Mediterranean world 46 Not only do they require many years to mature,
but they also demand persistent care if they are ever to yield a profitable harvest. A
female date palm, for example, does not reach maturity until fourteen to thirty
five years of age, and it can bear its calorie-rich, easily preservable fruit for more
than a century.47 Olive trees, which can live considerably longer than date palms,48
need seven years to bear edible fruit and reach maturity after fifteen to twenty years
In contrast, grapevines require only two years to reach maturity. This shorter time
span and their relative lack of nutrients rendered them less valuable and thus less
a target of aggression in times of a protracted siege, which may explain why they
are not mentioned in our law from Deuteronomy 49 The felling of two grown olive
trees meant the permanent loss of 1.5 to 2.2 kilograms of olive oil per year, and this
44 Since arable soil was also valuable, it too became a target of hostility. One could cause
lasting damage to it by sowing salt or salt-cress. This punitive measure seems, however, to have
been a ritual action performed primarily against inhabited municipal areas and after conquests,
not during a siege. See the literature cited in n. 24 above.
45 Because soldiers had to tend their own crops, sieges during the harvest season were rare
and confined by and large to professional armies. Ephal discusses fortuitous times for sieges; see
Siege, 61-63.
46 The role of fruit trees in ancient LSS is easiest to assess by a perusal of the various Baby
lonian, Akkadian, Assyrian, and Hittite law collections, which treat fruit trees as the most valu
able property.
47 See W. H. Barreveld, Date Palm Products (FAO Agricultural Services Bulletin 101; Food
and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Rome, 1993). Because of the time they require
to reach maturity, date palms belonged to the most valuable property in southern Mesopotamia.
The penalty for harming a neighbors date palm was one mina of silver or a male boy; see, e.g.,
Georges Contenau, Contrats -Babyloniens I: De Tiglath-phalasar III ? Nabonide (Musee du
Louvre, Textes Cuneiformes 12; Paris: Geuthner, 1927), 89.
48 An olive tree in Bar, Montenegro, is over two thousand years old, and one-thousand
year-old trees throughout the Mediterranean are not unusual.
49 Halakic tradition, however, requires that one allow a vine to mature for four years before
harvesting its grapes. As prestige objects, vineyards were nevertheless targets of enemy aggression
(see, e.g., Judg 15:4-5; Jer 12:10; Joel 1).
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Wright: Warfare and. Wanton Destruction
435
oil, in contrast to wine, represents a critical component of the diet in western Asia
and Mediterranean lands.50 Equally high in caloric value are figs, producing fifteen
million kilocalories per hectare, as compared to 1.3 to 2 million for wheat or wheat
polycropped with olives.51 Fruit orchards and gardens were also prestige objects
and symbols of dominion. In Babylonia the date palm was known as "the tree of
wealth."52 Qohelet boasts of his gardens and parks (D^DTlfll mix), in which he
planted all kinds of fruit trees ( 2 [2:5]). Although a late text, it accurately
mirrors the role of gardens in displays of power and wealth.53 Finally, gardens and
orchards often belonged to temples and cultic complexes,54 or were themselves cul
tic places.55
For these reasons, fruit trees were prime strategic targets in siege situations.
Whereas interference with the water supply and the robbing of grain guaranteed
surrender through the immediate physical effect of dehydration and starvation, the
practice of gradual fruit tree destruction, as described in Deut 20:19-20 and E A
91, had enduring consequences and was thus more psychological in nature. The
50 See F. R. Riley, "Olive Oil Production on Bronze Age Crete: Nutritional Properties, Pro
cessing Methods, and Storage Life of Minoan Olive Oil," Oxford Journal of Archaeology 21 (2002):
63-75; as well as the articles in History and Technology of Olive Oil in the Holy Land (ed. Etan
Ayalon; Arlington, VA: Olearius, 1994) and Olive Oil in Antiquity: Israel and Neighboring Coun
tries from Neolith to Early Arab Period (ed. Michael Heltzer and David Eitam; Haifa: University of
Haifa, 1987).
51 Figs were also the most important wartime food in Attica; see Lin Foxhall, "Farm and
Fighting in Ancient Greece," in War and Society in the Greek World (ed. John Rich and Graham
Shipley; London: Routledge, 1993), 134-45, here 141.
52 See, e.g., Wilfred G. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature (Oxford: Clarendon, 1959),
74:56. The best example in the Bible for gardens, vineyards, and orchards as prestige objects is
1 Kings 21. On the Garden of Uzza and the Kings Garden, see F. Stavrakopoulou, "Exploring the
Garden of Uzza: Death, Burial and Ideologies of Kingship," Bib 87 (2006): 1-21.
53 A discussion of the evidence cannot be provided here. See Terje Stordalen, Echoes of Eden:
Genesis 2-3 and Symbolism of the Eden Garden in Biblical Hebrew Literature (CBET 25; Leuven:
Peeters, 2000); Lawrence E. Stager, "Jerusalem and the Garden of Eden," Erlsr 26 (1999): 183-94;
R. Bichler and R. R?llinger, "Die H?ngenden G?rten zu Ninive: Die L?sung eines R?tsels?" in Von
Sumer bis Homer: Festschrift f?r Manfred Schretter zum 60. Geburtstag am 25. Februar 2004 (ed.
Robert R?llinger; AOAT 325; M?nster: Ugarit, 2005), 153-218; Stephanie Dalley, "The Hanging
Gardens of Babylon at Nineveh," in Assyrien im Wandel der Zeiten: XXXIXe Rencontre
assyriologique internationale, Heidelberg, 6-10 Juli 1992 (ed. Harald Hauptmann and Hartmut
Waetzoldt; Heidelberger Studien zum alten Orient 6; Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orientverlag,
1997), 19-24; Bruce Lincoln, "? la recherche du paradis perdu," HR 43 (2003): 139-54.
54 See the literature cited in the preceding footnote. Gardens belonging to cultic centers
would not have been the first targets in siege warfare insofar as they were located intramurally.
In the Assyrian sources they are destroyed as a part of punitive measures against cities; see below.
55 Ingo Kottsieper "B?ume als Kultort," in Das Kleid der Erde: Pflanzen in der Lebenswelt des
Alten Testaments (ed. Ute Neumann-Gorsolke and Peter Riede; Stuttgart: Calwer; Neukirchen
Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2002), 169-87.
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436
Journal of Biblical Literature 127, no. 3 (2008)
tactic aimed to achieve two related objectives: (1) to elicit a decisive battle on open
ground, and (2) to precipitate the city's capitulation.56
Lengthy sieges were extremely costly for the beleaguerer?even more than for
the beleaguered. When one was attacked by a stronger opponent, the best strategy
was to withdraw to the safety of ones city and simply wait out the impending siege.
Against large professional armies with well-organized logistical operations like
those of the Assyrians and Babylonians, such a plan was less effective. But against
small armies employing many conscripted soldiers who neither were adept at siege
craft nor could afford to neglect their farms for any extended time period, this wait
ing game was usually won by the besieged.57 For a commander it was thus
imperative to provoke a quick and decisive battle in the field so that his levied sol
diers could return to their duties back home. Some accounts describe the means
with which they seduced the besieged into battle,58 whereas most do not. The grad
ual destruction of fruit trees, however, would have been a superb tactic with which
one could draw out the inhabitants of a city into the open where they could be
trounced in battle.59
The second objective of orchard destruction in a siege situation was to bring
about an early surrender. The army would hold the trees "hostage" as if they were
human captives, gradually killing them off when demands were not met. In E A 91
the ransom was either a large amount of silver and gold or Byblos itself. Moreover,
56 See Jeffrey . Tigay, Deuteronomy = Devarim: The Traditional Hebrew Text with the New
JPS Translation (JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1996), 190;
Israel Ephal, "On Warfare and Military Control in the Ancient Near Eastern Empires," in History,
Historiography, and Interpretation: Studies in Biblical and Cuneiform Literatures (ed. Hayim Tad
mor and Moshe Weinfeld; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1983), 97; and idem, Siege, 54-55.
57 See Sun Tzu's Art of War (fifth century c.e.), which argues at length in ch. 3 that the worst
possible strategy is to besiege walled cities. One of the reasons given is time: it would require at
least six months to breach the walls (three months for logistical preparations and three months
to build siege ramps); a skillful leader therefore subdues the enemy by means of a stratagem. One
of the earliest Iron Age instances of a major siege is found at Tell es-Safi/Gath. See Oren
Ackermann, Hendrik J. Bruins, and Aren . Maeir, "A Unique Human-Made Trench at Tell es
Safi/Gath, Israel: Anthropogenic Impact and Landscape Response," Geoarchaeology 20 (2005):
303-28.
58 See the examples listed above in section III.
59 Such was a conventional practice of early Greek armies. Foxhall writes in regard to the
Peloponnesians' technique of crop ravaging: "[T]he aim was to crack the city's unity. The threat
perceived by individual households to their own subsistence was the enemy's most powerful
weapon" ("Farm and Fighting," 143). See also Yvon Garlan, Recherches de poliocretique grecque
(Bibliotheque des Ecoles francaises d'Athenes et de Rome 223; Paris: de Boccard, 1974); as well as
J. K. Anderson, Military Theory and Practice in the Age ofXenophon (Berkeley: University of Cal
ifornia Press, 1970), 47-48; Josiah Ober, Fortress Attica: Defense of the Athenian Land Frontier,
404-322 B.C. (Mnemosyne 84; Leiden: Brill, 1985), 32-35; and Paul Bentley Kern, Ancient Siege
Warfare (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 90-91, 97-98,104.
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Wright: Warfare and Wanton Destruction
437
because fruit trees were both lucrative sources of income and prestige objects, they
belonged not only to the local ruler but also to other wealthy landowners.60 A char
acteristic feature of siege stories is the struggle between political factions within
the city.61 The Rib-Adda correspondence speaks often of how the enemy pressured
political actors within Byblos to depose their ruler and join forces with them.62
After describing how his orchards were ravaged, he remarks: "my own men have
become hostile to me."63 One way of coercing this power base to stage a putsch
would have been to chop down fruit trees until the group cooperated.
This tactic of systematically razing orchards may be compared to later evi
dence collected by Steven W. Cole.64 When the Muslim armies laid siege to al-Hira
in the seventh century c.e., they threatened to destroy their fruit trees before the
town surrendered.65 Cole quotes the work of Fred Donner:
It was normal procedure for nomads wishing to subject an oasis to resort to a
process of psychological warfare; they invested the whole settlement, and then
gradually cut down palm trees a few at a time until the residents, watching the
destruction of the towns livelihood from the safety of their towers, finally agreed
to pay tribute before too much damage was done.66
Early-nineteenth-century accounts refer to similar threats of razing orchards.
According to Alois Musil, "If the nomads want to compel the settlers to pay them
regular tribute, they encamp before the kasr [stronghold],... light a fire under one
of the large fruit trees,. . . threaten to burn and break all their trees and bushes,
and in this manner force them to surrender."67 The gradual nature of fruit tree
destruction in these accounts corresponds to the situation of a protracted siege
depicted in Deut 20:19-20.
60 See, e.g., the schedule of estates with orchards assigned to officials (221) and the survey
of large estates sold (222) in F. M. Fales and J. N. Postgate, Imperial Administrative Records, part
2, Provincial and Imperial Administration (SAA 11; Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1996).
61 For biblical accounts, see Jeremiah 36-38 (and perhaps Lachish Ostracon 6); 2 Samuel 20;
2 Kings 7; and the insightful observations of Eph'al, Siege, 55-57, 142-47.
62 See the attempted assassination in EA 81 and 138, as well as 69 and 85. On the theme in
general, see Liverani, "Rib-Adda," 108-11.
63 See Youngblood, "Rib-Haddi," 352. Liverani translates lines 13-15: "(Abdi-Ashirta) has
tried to take Byblos and to cut my gardens down, so that my men have gone away/become hos
tile ..." ("Rib-Adda," 109).
64 Steven W. Cole, "The Destruction of Orchards in Assyrian Warfare," in Assyria 1995, ed.
Parpola and Whiting, 29-40, here 34-35.
65 Alois Musil, The Middle Euphrates: A Topographical Itinerary (Oriental Explorations and
Studies 3; New York: AMS, 1927), 288.
66 Fred McGraw Donner, The Early Islamic Conquests (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1981), 30.
67 Musil, Middle Euphrates, 288.
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438
Journal of Biblical Literature 127, no. 3 (2008)
V. Destruction of Fruit Trees by Neo-Assyrian Armies
While the comparative material cited by Cole assists us in understanding the
tactic proscribed by Deuteronomic law, its explanatory value for the evidence for
the Neo-Assyrian armies is questionable.68 Cole surveys the references to the cut
ting down of fruit trees in Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions and notes that in many
cases we can be sure that the army did not initially succeed in capturing their
enemy.69 From this Cole concludes that references to orchard destruction function
in the royal narratives as hyperbolic tropes that veil the use of a siege tactic with
which the Assyrians forced cities to surrender. This tactic involved gradually raz
ing fruit trees in order to achieve the city s capitulation.70
Coles reading of the inscriptions raises questions, and a somewhat different
interpretation seems preferable: According to a long literary tradition, the demo
lition of lands, fields, and water sources was the epitome of a decisive victory. By
devoting more space to demolition in cases where the Assyrian army ultimately
failed to capture the enemy ruler, the scribe strives to remove any doubt that the
king had achieved his strategic goals. The late Hayim Tadmor isolated this phe
nomenon, calling it a "face-saving device." His interpretation is supported by a sub
sequent study by Bustenai Oded. Both scholars contend that the apologetic royal
inscriptions seek to obscure the king's failure by reporting that he contained the
enemy ruler in his city and denuded his entire land.71 Even the trees next to the
city walls are uprooted, while the walls themselves serve to imprison (rather than
protect) the ruler "like a pig in a sty" or "a bird in a cage."72 Now if, as Cole main
68 Hasels arguments against interpreting Deut 20:19-20 as a response to Neo-Assyrian mil
itary practice, while helpful, diverge from my own at critical junctures as a result of his convic
tion that the text polemicizes against Egyptian siege warfare.
69 Thus, Shalmaneser III reports that "Marduk-bel-us?te [from Gannan?te], the usurper
who was not aware of his own deeds, came out against me to do battle and combat. I defeated him
and brought a great slaughter upon him, enclosed him in his own city. I ripped out his harvest,
cut down his orchards, damned his river." See Ernst Michel, "Die Assur-Texte Salmanassars III
858-824," WO 4 (1967): 29-37, here 30, iv 3-5. However, Gannan?te appears not to have been con
quered until a year later; if so, the narrative would describe an uncompleted siege.
70 Cole, "Destruction of Orchards," 34-36.
71 Hayim Tadmor, The Inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser III, King of Assyria (Jerusalem: Israel
Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1994), 79; Bustenai Oded, "Cutting Down Orchards in
Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: The Historiographie Aspect," JACiv 12 (1997): 93-98. He refers to the
"historiographic code" of the royal inscriptions. See also R. J. van der Spek, "The Struggle of King
Sargon II of Assyria against the Chaldean Merodach-Baladan (710-707 B.C.)," JEOL 25 (1977-78):
55-66, here 62.
72 Thus, Tiglath-pileser III claims, "I enclosed Mukin-zeri of Bit-Amukkani in Sapiya, his
royal city. I inflicted a heavy defeat upon him before his (city) gates. I cut down the orchards and
the sissoo-trees around the city walls, and did not leave a single one. I killed the date-palms
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Wright: Warfare and Wanton Destruction
439
tains, the Assyrian armies gradually destroyed fruit trees as a coercive siegecraft
tactic, and if the readers of the royal inscriptions were familiar with this tactic, then
the description of orchard destruction next to city walls would have been ineffec
tive as a face-saving device.
Cole also offers a questionable reading of the iconographic evidence. He refers
to a relief from Sennacherib in Nineveh portraying the siege of Dilbat (fig. 1),
tarixSZ - ._*_I_" ^*^ -_
Fig. 1. Destruction of Dilbat s date palms during the despoliation of the city. Archibald
Paterson, Assyrian Sculptures: Palace of Sinacherib. Plates and Ground-plan of the Palace
(The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1915), pi. 13.
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440
Journal of Biblical Literature 127, no. 3 (2008)
suggesting that we should read this relief as a narrative from top to bottom. Accord
ingly, the soldiers first cut down the date palms and then the city capitulates (the
bottom register depicts despoliation). The suggestion poses several problems:
Whereas early reliefs (e.g., from the time of Assurnasirpal II) represent pictorial
narratives with a set direction in which they are to be read, this was not always the
case in the iconography of the Sargonids. Artists attempted to produce panoramas
with landscape illusion, perspective, and background. Hence, one cannot assume
that a relief from the time of Sennacherib follows a fixed narrative sequence. More
over, the top and bottom registers of the relief in question agree insofar as both
depict scenes of devastation and demolition. Fighting is not portrayed anywhere,
while trees are being felled in both the upper and lower registers.73 Finally, destruc
tion of fruit trees after a siege is evidenced elsewhere in Sennacherib's reliefs, such
as one showing the defeat of a Babylonian city (fig. 2): In the background we can
see the city's inhabitants performing presumably post-conquest rituals while sol
diers chop down intramural trees.74
Fig 2. Destruction of date palms during despoliation of a city in southern Mesopotamia. Austen Henry
Layard, Nineveh und Babylon nebst Beschreibung seiner Reisen in Armenien, Kurdistan und der W?ste
(Leipzig: Dyk, 1856), p. 449, pi. VIILB.
throughout his land. I stripped off their fruit and filled the meadows" (Tadmor, Tiglath-pileser
HI, 162:23-24). Support for this understanding of orchard destruction as a face-saving device is
provided by Summary Inscription I, in which the king claims to have inflicted a great defeat on
Sarduri in front of the gates of Turushpa and then to have finally set up a royal image in front of
the city (ibid., 125:23-24).
73 The now lost relief underwent heavy damage already in antiquity so that the portrayal of
Sennacherib in the middle was missing when it was found. As in other images of Sennacherib, the
damage may have been wrought in revenge (in this case by Babylonians during the conquest of
Nineveh).
74 See Irene Winter, "Royal Rhetoric and the Development of Historical Narrative in Neo
Assyrian Reliefs," Studies in Visual Communication 7 (1981): 2-38.
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Wright: Warfare and Wanton Destruction
441
Surveying the Assyrian reliefs, Hasel points out that in many cases trees are
still standing after the city has been captured, while there are no scenes of trees
being cut down prior to a conquest. This observation provides a necessary correc
tive to Coles interpretation. Nevertheless, it fails to explain a scene from the Central
Palace of Tiglath-pileser III in Nimrud (fig. 3) in which a tree has been felled and
the trunk of another one can be seen to the right. Hasel claims that the first tree is
Fig. 3. Scene portraying a city being stormed and two fallen (date) palms (from the reign of Tiglath
pileser III). C. J. Gadd, Stones of Assyria: The Surviving Remains of Assyrian Sculpture, Their Recovery,
and Their Original Positions (London: Chatto and Windus, 1936), pi. 12.
still standing and attributes its strange angle to the artist s attempt to portray a dif
ferent perspective. His reproduction of the relief inexplicably does not include the
trunk of the second tree. An alternative interpretation of the scene is thus war
ranted.75
At the risk of generalizing, the depictions of destruction and demolition in
Assyrian writing serve to emphasize the limitless fury of the king when it comes to
75 Hasel, Military Practice, 67-68, 89-90 . 121. See also Richard D. Barnett and Margarete
Falkner, The Sculptures of Assur-banipal II (883-859 BC) Tiglath-pileser III (745-727 BC) Esarhad
don (681-669 BQfrom the Central and Southwest Palaces at Nimrud (London: British Museum,
1962), slab 14a/plate XXXI (probably belonging to the same scene as that depicted in fig. 3), which
shows fallen date palms under a siege engine.
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442
Journal of Biblical Literature 127, no. 3 (2008)
punishing rebels. When he goes to battle against an enemy, the king displays his
unfathomable glory and might by destroying everything in his path.76 A city is not
just despoiled and burned; its peripheral territory is also thoroughly denuded.77 In
keeping with his dual nature, the Assyrian king could "build up" and create life by
establishing cities and planting lush, exotic gardens,78 and he could also "tear down"
and annihilate life by flattening cities and uprooting orchards.79 In composing pro
pagandists texts, scribes drew on any image that could effectively communicate
the ideology of the empire.80 In the reliefs, the destruction of trees goes hand in
hand with other measures of terror the army employed to vanquish resistance to the
empires expansion.81 These measures are presented as the rightful recompense for
a vassals rebellious behavior. The ruination of LSS can begin already during an
attack on a city, as in fig. 3, yet more often it is executed after the defeat. Enemy lead
ers are impaled and flayed; divine images and symbols of power are ceremonially
deported; the temple and its gardens are desecrated; the rest of the city is sacked and
76 Thus, Sennacherib claims that "the terrifying radiance of my majesty overwhelmed" his
enemy; see, e.g., D. Luckenbill, The Annals of Sennacherib (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1924), 29:ii 38 and passim; and the studies by A. L. Oppenheim, "Akkadian pul(u)h(t)u and
melammu" JAOS 63 (1943): 31-34; and Elena Cassin, La splendeur divine: Introduction a letude
de la mentalite mesopotamienne (Civilisations et societes 8; The Hague: Mouton, 1968).
77 See, e.g., Walter Mayer, "Sargons Feldzug gegen Urartu - 714 v.Chr. Text und ?ber
setzung," MDOG 115 (1983): 65-132.
78 See the literature cited above in n. 59.
79 These images, which are already heavily imbued with divine associations, are appropri
ated extensively by the biblical authors when describing the dual character of Israels God (see, e.g.,
the numerous passages in Jeremiah in which a form of WnJ occurs). The clearest point of contact
is when the Assyrian army serves as the instrument of divine wrath, as in Isa 10:5-19. In this way
the power and ideology of Assyrian imperial rhetoric are subverted by one of its subjects. More
over, the destruction of an enemy is likened, as in Assyrian texts, to the destruction of a cedar, oak,
or fruit tree in, e.g., Amos 2:9 and Isa 10:33-34. On the Assyrian evidence, see C. Zaccagnini, "An
Urartean Royal Inscription in the Report of Sargons Eighth Campaign," in Assyrian Royal Inscrip
tions: New Horizons in Literary, Ideological, and Historical Analysis (ed. F. M. Fales; Orientis
Antiqui Collectio XVII; Rome: Instituto per L'Oriente, 1981), 259-95, as well as the extensive
comments of Wazana, "Trees of the Field."
80 For example, the actions of Tiglath-pileser I are compared to the flood (ab?bu); Liter
arische Keilschrifttexte aus Assur (ed. Erich Ebeling; Berlin: Akademie, 1953), 63 r. 14-18. See also
Victor Horowitz and Joan G. Westenholz, "LKA 63: A Heroic Poem in Celebration of Tiglath
Pileser Is Musru-Qumanu Campaign," JCS 42 (1990): 1-49, here 4 r. 14-18. The correlation
between flood and orchard destruction is found also much later in an account of Sargon II
recounting the punishment of Aramaens; see Andreas Fuchs, Inschriften Sargons IL aus Khorsabad
(G?ttingen: Cuvillier, 1994), 148-49: 288-91. For Ninurtas most prominent weapon, ab?bu, see
Amar Annus, The God Ninurta in the Mythology and Royal Ideology of Ancient Mesopotamia (SAA
14; Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2002), 122-33.
81 See Steven W. Holloway, Assur Is King! Assur Is King! Religion in the Exercise of Power in
the Neo-Assyrian Empire (Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 10; Leiden: Brill, 2002).
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Wright: Warfare and Wanton Destruction
443
burned, the population exiled, and the surrounding orchards chopped down.
Everyone passing by the region should shudder in horror, and news of the atroci
ties should spread to other lands far and wide. Such is the rationale of Assyrian
psychological warfare. Ubi solitudinemfaciunt, pacem appellant ("They devastate an
area and call it peace") to borrow Tacitus s description of the Roman imperial army
(Agricola 30).
These depictions of "shock and awe" warfare do not correspond to the conduct
forbidden in Deut 20:19-20. The biblical law, as argued above, censures a practice
of cutting down fruit trees when a city has still not capitulated after an extended
period, a practice representing the "the indirect approach" discussed above. In con
trast, the Assyrian reliefs and inscriptions depict orchard destruction as part of a
more comprehensive denudation of a land and in reprisal for previous injuries.82
This practice, in keeping with its nature as recompense levied against impervious
peoples or rebellious rulers, aimed simultaneously to have a psychological effect
by instilling fear in the hearts of both friend and foe. If the king failed to conquer
a city, he would adopt a "scorched earth policy," despoiling, slashing, and burning
everything in sight before abandoning the region. By laying waste the LSS, he
deprived his enemies of a means of survival, thus rendering them ineffective as a
threat to his homeland or the balance of power in the region.
It is worth noting that of the numerous depictions of orchard destruction in
Assyrian inscriptions and reliefs, none relates to the southern Levant. To the con
trary, the Lachish reliefs portray the conquered city surrounded by more than one
hundred trees of perhaps five different species, all still standing and laden with
fruit.83
Some inscriptions do refer to acts of torture before gates of besieged cities,
ostensibly as a method of applying psychological pressure. From this, Israel Ephal
suggests that the same would have been done with respect to orchards since the
felling of fruit trees is explicitly mentioned in several of these contexts. Neverthe
less, the evidence is not clear. For example, Ashurnasirpal claims to have impaled
live soldiers on posts before the city of Amedu and then to have fought his way
inside the city and cut down its orchards.84 The point of the inscription, however,
seems to be that the Assyrian king demonstrated his indisputable superiority over
his opponent by entering his royal city and tearing down his gardens. The uncon
quered city of Amedu had therefore to admit its de facto defeat. It is thus unwar
ranted to surmise that the desolation was gradual and meant to break the defenders
82 See the examples cited in n. 80 above, as well as the comments of Hasel, Military Practice, 81.
83 See Christoph Uehlinger, "Clio in a World of Pictures," in "Like a Bird in a Cage": The
Invasion of Sennacherib in 701 BCE (ed. Lester L. Grabbe; JSOTSup 363; London: Sheffield Aca
demic Press, 2003), 221-305, esp. 242-43.
84 See Grayson, Assyrian Rulers of the Early First Millennium, 2:220, as well as the similar case
of Hazael of Damascus in ibid., 3:48:14-17.
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444
Journal of Biblical Literature 127, no. 3 (2008)
resistance slowly.85 The depicted situation does not therefore correspond to
Deuteronomy 20.86
One cannot, however, preclude the possibility that the orchard destruction
also functioned as a coercive tactic of siegecraft. Although the Assyrians were sec
ond to none when it came to conventional siege techniques (sapping, ramming,
tunneling, and scaling), such methods cost not only a lot of time but also exorbi
tant human and financial resources. Therefore Cole may be correct with respect to
actual practice. In order to avoid these expenses, field commanders would have
resorted to the destruction of orchards as a way of forcing a city to capitulate. How
ever, we face a problem of evidence. Neither inscriptions nor letters, documents, or
other non-propagandistic texts?the most reliable sources of information?witness
to this practice. Moreover, data from "mass media" witness to a coherent ideology
of the Assyrians supremacy.87 If the authors of the Deuteronomic law indeed had
the Assyrian practice in view, we would expect them to have responded more
explicitly to this ideology, rather than focusing on a method of orchard destruction
that was employed as a cost-saving tactic and that was more common to smaller
armies.
To summarize: Although it is quite likely that the Assyrians, as masters of
siegecraft, recognized the potential of orchard destruction as a coercive measure,
the available evidence presents them as felling fruit trees only in order to punish
rebels. One must therefore exercise caution with respect to the suggestion that the
Deuteronomic law originated as a reflex of, or even polemic against, Assyrian mil
itary practices. If it were intended as protest against this particular empire, one
would expect it to have been formulated in a way that corresponds more closely to
the Assyrian methods. In the inscriptions and reliefs, destruction of trees is a puni
tive measure and, rather than being isolated, is consistently part of a larger pro
gram of destruction and despoliation. One would expect these aspects to be
85 Pace Eph'al, Siege, 50-55.
86The evidence of 2 Kgs 18:31//Isa 36:16 is suggestive. The Assyrian kings statements pos
sibly imply that if the besieged Jerusalemites did not depose Hezekiah and open the city gates, then
Assyrian soldiers would destroy their vineyards, orchards, and cisterns (see Wazana, "Are the
Trees of the Field Human?" 286). Yet this is probably reading too much into the statement. More
likely is that the Jerusalemites are simply being offered the alternative between eating their dung
and drinking their urine in the city (v. 27), and eating from their own fruit trees and drinking from
their own cisterns if they surrender. The same applies to 2 Kgs 19:29. Destruction is clearly threat
ened elsewhere (18:25 and 19:11), but it is not implicit in the rhetoric in this verse. Moreover, the
destruction referred to elsewhere is to the land in general and is part of a larger program of
denudation, in keeping with the royal inscriptions and reliefs.
87 For the use of the expression "mass media" in this context, see Ursula Seidl, "Babyloni
sche und assyrische Kultbilder in den Massenmedien des 1. Jahrtausends v.Chr.," in Images as
Media: Sources for the Cultural History of the Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean (1st Mil
lennium BCE) (ed. Christoph Uehlinger; OBO 175; Fribourg: University Press; G?ttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000), 89-114.
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Wright: Warfare and Wanton Destruction
445
integrated into the law if it were formulated specifically against the Assyrians. As
it is, the reader has no reason to think specifically of these northern aggressors.
The following sections consider the two sides of this argument in more detail.
VI. Reasons for Interpreting Deuteronomy 20:19-20
as an anti-assyrian polemic
There are several reasons for the popularity of the view that the law responds
specifically to Assyrian military conduct. The first has to do with the trajectory of
Deuteronomy research since 1805, when Wilhelm . L. de Wette submitted a dis
sertation proposing that the origins of Deuteronomy should be traced to the reign
of Josiah.88 Although most scholars today insist that the law code contains older and
later material as well, they also insist that it must be understood within a geopolit
ical context dominated by Assyrian expansion.89
In the second half of the twentieth century, two streams of research began to
converge in Deuteronomy studies. On the one hand, works appeared arguing
against the dependence of Deuteronomy on second-millennium Hittite treaties,
and, on the other, these studies increasingly emphasized themes such as imperial
ism, ideology, and propaganda. The discovery of Esarhaddons vassal treaties in
1955 prompted research that endeavored to show a genetic link between this doc
umentary form and Deuteronomy (esp. chs. 13 and 28).90 Simultaneously, it
88 Wilhelm . L. de Wette, Dissertatio critico-exegetica qua Deuteronomium... (Jena: Literis
Etzdorfii, 1805). The view was anticipated by Jerome; see Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews
(7 vols.; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1946), 6:377 n. 116.
89 These claims have not gone uncontested; see, e.g., Reinhard G. Kratz, Die Komposition der
erz?hlenden B?cher des Alten Testaments (G?ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000), 137-38.
90 William L. Moran, "The Ancient Near Eastern Background of the Love of God in Deuter
onomy," CBQ 25 (1963): 77-87; Dennis J. McCarthy, Treaty and Covenant: A Study in Form in the
Ancient Oriental Documents and in the Old Testament (AnBib 21; Rome: Biblical Institute, 1963);
Moshe Weinfeld, "Traces of Assyrian Treaty Formulae in Deuteronomy," Bib 46 (1965): 417-27;
and R. Frankena, "The Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon and the Dating of Deuteronomy," OtSt 14
(1965): 123-54. For more recent works, see Paul-Eugene Dion, "Deuteronomy 13: The Suppres
sion of Alien Religious Propaganda in Israel during the Late Monarchical Era," in Law and Ideol
ogy in Monarchic Israel (ed. Baruch Halpern and Deborah W. Hobson; JSOTSup 124; Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), 147-216; Bernard M. Levinson, "'But You Shall Surely Kill Him!':
The Text-Critical and Neo-Assyrian Evidence for MT Deut 13:10," in Bundesdokument und Gesetz:
Studien zum Deuteronomium (ed. Georg Braulik; Herders Biblische Studien 4; Freiburg: Herder,
1995), 37-63; Hans Ulrich Steymans, "Eine assyrische Vorlage f?r Deuteronomium 28,20-44:
Bundesdokument und Gesetz," in Studien zum Deuteronomium, ed. Braulik, 119-41; idem,
Deuteronomium 28 und die ade zur Thronfolgeregelung Asarhaddons: Segen und Fluch im Alten
Orient und in Israel (OBO 145; Freiburg: Universit?tsverlag, 1995); Eckart Otto, "Treueid and
Gesetz: Die Urspr?nge des Deuteronomiums im Horizont neuassyrischen Vertragsrechts," ZABR
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446
Journal of Biblical Literature 127, no. 3 (2008)
sparked renewed interest in the reigns of Manasseh and Josiah and the question of
Assyria's imposition of an imperial cult upon its vassals.91 The attention devoted to
imperialism was in turn fed by social and political developments of the late 1960s
and subsequent years. These changes left their mark on various disciplines in the
humanities?not least on Assyriology, which has traditionally had the most direct
influence on Deuteronomy research.92 Today interest in the multifaceted Judean
responses to Assyria and her imperial successors has grown.93 It should not be sur
prising, however, that this lively interest has occasionally aroused an eagerness to
discover a subversion of, and protests against, the empire in texts that are innocent
of such grand political motives.94
Another reason for the popularity of the view that the law addresses Assyrian
military conduct is the profusion of Assyrian witnesses to the practice of denuding
lands and felling orchards. What seems to have been overlooked, however, is that
2 (1996): 1-52; idem, Das Deuteronomium: Politische Theologie und Rechtsform in Juda und
Assyrien (BZAW 284; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1999), esp. 13-56.
91 See J. W. McKay, Religion in Judah under the Assyrians, 732-609 BC (SBT 2/26; London:
SCM, 1973); Morton Cogan, Imperialism and Religion: Assyria, Judah and Israel in the Eighth and
Seventh Centuries B.CE. (SBLMS 19; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1974); and Hermann Spiecker
mann, Juda unter Assur in der Sargonidenzeit (FRLANT 129; G?ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
1982).
92 See, e.g., the various papers in Power and Propaganda: A Symposium on Ancient Empires
(ed. Mogens Trolle Larsen; Mesopotamia 7; Copenhagen: Akademisk, 1979), esp. 297-317 (Mario
Liveranis contribution, "The Ideology of the Assyrian Empire").
93 For an example of this development in another book, such as Isaiah, see the fine articles
by Peter Machinist ("Assyria and Its Image in the First Isaiah," JAOS 103 [1983]: 719-37, and
"Mesopotamian Imperialism and Israelite Religion: A Case Study from the Second Isaiah," in
Symbiosis, Symbolism, and the Power of the Past [ed. William G. Dever and Seymour Gitin;
Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003], 237-64) and Moshe Weinfeld ("The Protest against Impe
rialism in Ancient Israelite Prophecy," in The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations [ed.
S. N. Eisenstadt; Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986], 169-82).
94 Several scholars have criticized the attempts to draw a genetic link between Esarhaddon's
treaties and Deuteronomy. See, e.g., Timo Veijola, "Wahrheit und Intoleranz nach Deuterono
mium 13," ZTK 92 (1995): 287-314; Juha Pakkala, "Der literar- und religionsgeschichtliche Ort
von Deuteronomium 13" in Redaktions- und religionsgeschichtliche Perspektiven zur "Deuterono
mismus?Diskussion in Tora und Vorderen Propheten (ed. Jan Christian Gertz et al.; BZAW 365;
Berlin: de Gruyter; 2006), 125-37; and above all Christoph Kochs comparison of Deuteronomy,
Esarhaddon's vassal treaties and the Sefire treaties ("Vertrag, Treueid und Bund: Studien zur
Rezeption des altorientalischen Vertragsrechts im Deuteronomium und zur Ausbildung der
Bundestheologie im Alten Testament" [Dr. theol. diss., University of Heidelberg, 2006]), which
builds on ideas of Hayim Tadmor, "Aramaization of Assyria," in Mesopotamien und seine Nach
barn: Politische und kulturelle Wechselbeziehungen im alten Vorderasien vom 4. bis 1. Jahrtausend
v. Chr.: XXV. Rencontre assyriologique internationale Berlin 3. bis 7. Juli 1978 (ed. Hans-J?rg Nissen
and Johannes Renger; 2 vols.; Berliner Beitr?ge zum Vorderen Orient 1; Berlin: Reimer, 1982),
2:449-70.
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Wright: Warfare and Wanton Destruction
447
the destruction of LSS, and specifically trees, is just as widely witnessed for other
imperial armies, such as those of the Hittites and New Kingdom Egypt.95 Sources
from the Neo-Babylonian empire and Persia contain admittedly far fewer refer
ences to the destruction of orchards. The disparity is nevertheless due to the nature
of the material. The Assyrian annals, structured according to military campaigns
and boasting great feats in battle, can be traced to Hittite precursors. This inscrip
tional tradition is, however, foreign to the Babylonian sources. As David Vander
hooft suggests, the fact that the Babylonians do not adopt it, preferring instead
consciously to archaize their chronicles according to earlier models, may be due to
their long-standing antipathy for their northern neighbors.96 Similarly, they do not
seem to have produced narrative reliefs depicting sieges and battles.97 This does
not mean, as often claimed, that they were less violent or militant than the Assyr
ians. To the contrary, archaeological evidence from Ashkelon, for example, sup
ports the statements of the Babylonian Chronicle, graphically illustrating the
ferocity with which Babylonian armies could achieve their geopolitical aspira
tions.98 That also the extramural trees were often targeted for destruction is prob
able. If so, it would correspond to Jeremiahs descriptions of Babylon (6:6; 7:20;
22:7; 46:22-23)."
A second point seeming to support the interpretation of Deut 20:19-20 as
anti- Assyrian polemic is that a particular aspect of the reliefs appears to match the
95 For the Hittites, see Ahmet ?nal, "Untersuchungen zur Terminologie der hethitischen
Kriegsf?hrung, Teil 1, 'Verbrennen, in Brand stecken als Kriegstechnik," Or 52 (1983): 164-80;
idem, "Studien ?ber das hethitische Kriegswesen, II, Verba Delendi harnink/harganu?
Vernichten, zugrunde richten,"' Studi Miceni ed Egeo-Anatolica 24 (1984): 71-85; Sylvia Hutter
Braunsar, "Die Terminologie der Zerst?rung eroberten Acker- und Siedlunglandes in hethitischen
K?nigsinschriften," in Der orientalische Mensch und seine Beziehungen zur Umwelt (ed. Bern
hard R. Scholz; Graz Morgenl?ndische Studien 2; Graz: RM-Druck & Verlag, 1989), 201-18. For
New Kingdom Egypt, see Michael G. Hasel, Domination and Resistance: Egyptian Military Activ
ity in the Southern Levant 1300-1185 B.C. (Probleme der ?gyptologie 11; Leiden: Brill, 1998),
75-83; idem, "A Textual and Iconographic Note on prt and mnt in Egyptian Military Accounts,"
G?ttinger Miszellen 168 (1998): 61-72; and idem, Military Practice, 104-13.
96 See David Vanderhooft, The Neo-Babylonian Empire and Babylon in the Latter Prophets
(HSM 59; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999), 22-23. The Babylonian and Esarhaddon chronicles do
not even report that the Assyrians destroyed orchards on their campaigns.
97 For reasons why the Assyrians preferred this medium of art, see Irene Winter, "Art as Evi
dence for Interaction: Relations between the Assyrian Empire and North Syria," in Mesopotamien
und Seine Nachbarn, ed. Nissen and Renger, 2:355-81. One of the very few extant Babylonian
reliefs significantly shows the felling of cedar trees; see F. H. Weissbach, Die Inschriften Nebukad
nezars II im Wadi Brisa und am Nahr El-Kelb (WVDOG 5; Leipzig: Biblio-Verlag, 1906).
98 Lawrence E. Stager, "Ashkelon and the Archaeology of Destruction: Kislev 604 BCE,"
Erlsr 25 (1996): 61-74.
99 The sixteenth-century commentator Moshe Alshich suggests that Jeremiah alludes here
to Deut 20:19-20.
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448
Journal of Biblical Literature 127, no. 3 (2008)
biblical text. The Assyrian soldiers are always depicted felling trees with axes, a tool
to which Deut 20:19 explicitly refers (jru vbv ). This correspondence, however,
is less significant than it appears at first. How else could the troops expect to cut
down a tree? Saws were not used for this purpose until the eighteenth century c.e.
in Europe.100 Not only did burning a tree pose more problems than chopping it
down, but also sources from other times and places present armies using this
method against their enemies.101
Another reason is the lack of biblical evidence: Whereas the Assyrian sources
present orchard destruction in a situation of siege, the biblical accounts do not.
This, too, may seem to be a strong argument in favor of the anti-Assyrian inter
pretation, yet a closer examination reveals critical flaws. Just as in the case of axes,
depictions of tree destruction in siege situations are not confined to Assyrian
sources. One must also consider the functional differences between biblical war
accounts and royal inscriptions. In stark contrast to the latter, biblical accounts
serve a pedagogical purpose for generations long after the wars and events
described. Their authors seek to find deeper meaning in this history. In recounting
and interpreting the past, they shape the identity of a people, especially in a period
during which Israel no longer possessed a king and army of its own. As one would
expect from such literature, the most basic information regarding warfare and
siegecraft, not to mention military and societal structures, is extremely meager.
More often than not, its authors depict only unusual events on the battlefield,
emphasizing the roles of priests and prophets in the place of tacticians and com
manders. The lack of a direct correspondence to the practice forbidden in Deut
20:19-20 should therefore be no more of a surprise than the absence of accounts
describing many of the most routine aspects of daily life in ancient Israel.102
VII. Deuteronomy 20:19-20 as a Product
of an intra-societal discourse
If the Deuteronomic prohibition does not protest against Assyrian martial
conduct, then which empire does it have in view? Is it the Neo-Babylonians, or per
100 See Herbert Killian, "Vom 'Schinderblech' zum Diebswerkzeug: Ein R?ckblick auf die
400j?hrige Geschichte unserer Walds?ge," Centralblatt f?r das Gesamte Forstwesen 97 (1980): 65
101; Peter d'Alroy Jones, Story of the Saw (Manchester: Spear & Jackson, 1961); and Franz Maria
Feldhaus, Die S?ge: Ein R?ckblick auf vier Jahrtausende (Berlin: Dominicus, 1921).
101 See, e.g., Hasel, Domination, 75-82. For use of axes by Israelite besiegers, see Judg 9:48-49.
102 This is in response to Hasel's question, "[I]f this practice was so widely employed in Israel
as to warrant a polemic response, why do we not find any mention of it in the conquest accounts
of Joshua and Judges, or in the wars described in Samuel through the rest of Kings?" (Military
Practice, 133). Hasel seems to read these books as if they merely recorded Israelite history.
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Wright: Warfare and Wanton Destruction
449
haps New Kingdom Egypt, as Michael Hasel argues?103 The problem posed by this
question is not so much the identity of the perpetrator as the very assumption that
the law must condemn the behavior of another people.104 A similar premise seems
to be operative in Maimonides' claim that seething a kid in its mothers milk was
prohibited because it was "somehow connected to idolatry, forming perhaps part
of the service, or being used on some festival of the heathen."105 That even the most
mundane practices sanctioned by Deuteronomy betray a foreign cultic-religious
provenance is an idea whose origins are in the book itself. Referring to its category
of the "indigenous outsiders," Louis Stulman points out how the authors of
Deuteronomy create communal identity and provide Israel with a survival strategy
by attributing what they proscribe to non-Israelites.106 Both Maimonides and con
temporary commentators carry this project a step forward by discovering foreign
origins for practices that the book does not designate as non-Israelite and that were
likely common to Israel and Judah. The difference between the medieval and mod
ern biblical scholar is that the latter, in keeping with the trend of postcolonial stud
ies in the humanities, often identifies the target of attack not with the cult of the
Canaanites but rather with the propaganda of "the empire."107 Although there are
many biblical texts that reflect the ways Israel and Judah responded to the pressure
of foreign empires, Deut 20:19-20 is probably not one of them. Rather than an
mter-societal polemic, this law, I propose, constitutes a reflex of an mfra-societal
exchange on acceptable conduct for Israelite and Judean armies.108
Evidence for this claim is found first in the foregoing laws in Deuteronomy 20.
It would be difficult to imagine how the regulations concerning exemptions from
103 See Hasel, Military Practice.
104 Thus Christopher Wright, while dating Deuteronomy earlier, nevertheless assumes that
the law "was set up in contrast with practices of Israel's contemporaries" (Deuteronomy [NIB
COT; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996], 230).
105 See Maimonides, Guide to the Perplexed 3:48. Modern studies carrying this approach
forward include Othmar Keel, Das B?cklein in der Milch seiner Mutter und Verwandtes: im Lichte
eines altorientalischen Bildmotivs (OBO 333; Freiburg: Universit?tsverlag, 1990); and Ernst Axel
Knauf, "Zur Herkunft und Sozialgeschichte Israels: 'Das B?cklein in der Milch seiner Mutter,"' Bib
69 (1988): 153-69. For more on the interpretation of this law, see below with n. 121.
106 Louis Stulman, "Encroachment in Deuteronomy: An Analysis of the Social World of the
D Code,"/?L 109 (1990): 613-32.
107 The religious character of this propaganda nevertheless continues to be emphasized.
108 Rather than being mutually exclusive, intra-societal norm formation and inter-societal
boundary drawing are projects that reinforce each other. Both relate to strategies of survival, and
both build identity. But whereas the latter functions to demarcate and protect a people's distinc
tiveness, the former strengthens the ethical foundation for its longevity. Thus, ethics is the objec
tive of the former, while its formulation is presupposed by and subsumed to the task of the latter.
(Contact with other peoples nevertheless necessarily influences and incites intra-societal dis
courses.) For a somewhat similar understanding of inter- vs. intra-societal dynamics, see Mike
Featherstone, Undoing Culture: Globalization, Postmodernism and Identity (2nd ed.; London: Sage,
2000).
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450 Journal of Biblical Literature 127, no. 3 (2008)
military service (w. 5-8) or directions for pre-battle negotiations and rules of
engagement (w. 9-18) also represent protests against Neo-Assyrian military prac
tices. Why, then, should the final paragraph (w. 19-20) be any different? Appar
ently recognizing this inconsistency, Eckart Otto argues that the entire chapter
indeed constitutes anti-Assyrian polemics. For example, he contends that Israel is
required always to offer a city conditions of surrender before assailing it (w. 10-12),
whereas the Assyrians did this only rarely.109 Ottos approach is hardly compelling,
and it illustrates the dangers of searching too zealously for anti-imperial polemics
in every corner of Deuteronomy. There is no need to pit these laws against the
Assyrians when practices they condemn were quite common to the ancient world,
including Israel and Judah.
The Bible itself witnesses to a bellic ethos that is fundamentally opposed to the
principles set forth in Deuteronomy.110 For example, when fighting against
Shechem, Abimelech fails to offer the city terms of peace. Not only that, he kills
the inhabitants indiscriminately, razes the city, and sows it with salt (Judg 9:45).
Thereafter he and his soldiers proceed to cut boughs from trees with axes (fflOTlp)
and set ablaze the place where survivors had taken refuge (w. 46-49).111 Similarly,
in 2 Kings 3 Elisha prophesies divine aid for the Israelite coalition in its campaign
against Mesha of Moab: "[YHWH] will also hand over Moab to you. You shall con
quer every fortified city and every choice city; every good tree you shall fell, all
springs of water you shall stop up, and every gqod piece of land you shall pain with
stones" (w. 18-19).112 In telling how the coalition forces do just as Elisha prophe
sies, this text represents one of the clearest biblical witnesses to ecocidal and urbi
cidal aspects of ancient Israelite warfare.
The applicability of the Deuteronomic law to the situation depicted in
2 Kings 3 has been disputed. Michael Hasel and Nili Wazana argue that the law is
said to refer specifically to a situation of siege, while 2 Kings 3 describes how an
entire land was laid waste.113 Yet if the law forbids the destruction of fruit trees even
109 Otto, Krieg und Frieden, 101-3. Otto argues that the Assyrians most often first applied
military pressure and then negotiated. As evidence, he refers to 2 Kings 18-19 and a relief from
Sargon II that shows an Assyrian officer reading a scroll while facing the walls of a besieged city
(seeYigaelYadin, The Art of Warf are in Biblical Lands [New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963],320,425).
110 In contrast to later books, Joshua depicts warfare in keeping with these rules. The erad
ication of the Canaanites follows Deut 20:15-18. Joshua 9 plays on the distinction made by these
laws between distant peoples and the Seven Nations; see the comments of Michael Fishbane, Bib
lical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985), 206.
111 His actions directly violate not only w. 19-20 but above all w. 10-14.
112 The use of the word "pain" (TNDH1?) to describe the ecocidal actions against the land
resembles the use of "kill" ( ) to describe the urbicidal actions against Abel-Beth-Maacah in
2 Sam 20:19. See also D"TNn in Deut 20:19.
113 Hasel, Military Practice; and Wazana, "Are the Trees of the Field Human?" 285-86, 294.
One could attempt to harmonize Elishas prophecy with Deuteronomy 20 by arguing that Moab
lay beyond the borders of Israel and thus would not come within the purview of the law. Such an
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Wright: Warfare and Wanton Destruction
451
when a surrender was not forthcoming after "many days," then how much more
does it preclude beginning a campaign by ruining "every good tree" along with all
the LSS (every choice city, fertile field, and water source)?114 The operative juridi
cal principle here is a fortiori or bp. That 2 Kings 3 depicts a violation of the
law could not be more patent.115
Wazana contends, however, that Deut 20:19-20 is more applicable to the
Assyrian sources, since both refer to situations of protracted sieges. Yet reading the
story in 2 Kings 3 with its conclusion in view, we can better appreciate why the
author emphasizes the demolition of the Moabite lands. After a lengthy siege, the
coalition forces had failed to capture the city Kir-hareseth and above all Mesha,
who had rebelled against Israelite control (see 3:5 and 1:1). One may compare the
narrative to the aforementioned "face-saving device" in the Assyrian royal inscrip
tions employed by scribes when the king failed to capture an insurgent ruler. The
demolition is highlighted in order to remove all doubt that the imperial army had
vanquished and punished the kings enemy. This device parallels a similar conven
tion in omen texts. Thus, YOS 10 41:74-75 reads: "the city, which you are going to
besiege?you will cut down its (grove of) date palm(s) (then) you will go away
(from it)... ."116 As in the Assyrian royal inscriptions, the lack of success in tak
ing the city is compensated by the destruction of the orchards, and in this respect
approach is taken by Hasel with regard to w. 19-20 ("The Destruction of Trees in the Moabite
Campaign of 2 Kings 3:4-27: A Study in the Laws of Warfare" AUSS 40 [2002]: 197-206; and
idem, Military Practice, 129-37). The interpretation fails, however, to appreciate the redactional
character of w. 15-18, which was cogently demonstrated by Alexander Rofe (Introduction to
Deuteronomy [in Hebrew; Jerusalem: Akademon, 1982], 17-28) and has been accepted by most
commentators since. Yet even after this insertion it is not at all clear that w. 19-20 pertain only
to wars against the Seven Nations. A second argument Hasel offers is that 2 Kings 3 does not refer
to fruit trees. But does not "every good tree" include by definition trees that bear fruit?
114 The same point was made already by Grotius, Rights of War and Peace, 1461-63.
115 Since the texts may have originated in much different times and places, this violation
emerges only with the placement of the law in its present narrative context. Most commentators,
both ancient and modern, agree that the actions of the coalition are in fundamental opposition
to the norms in Deuteronomy 20. To account for the contradiction, various solutions are pro
posed. See the individual studies of Raymond Westbrook, "Elisha's True Prophecy in 2 Kings 3,"
JBL 124 (2005): 530-32; Jesse C. Long, Jr., and Mark Sneed, "'Yahweh Has Given These Three
Kings into the Hand of Moab': A Socio-Literary Reading of 2 Kings 3," in Inspired Speech: Prophecy
in the Ancient Near East: Essays in Honor of Herbert B. Huffmon (ed. John Kaltner and Louis Stul
man; JSOTSup 378; London: T&T Clark, 2004), 253-75; Joe M. Sprinkle, "Deuteronomic 'Just
War' (Deut 20,10-20) and 2 Kings 3,27," ZABR 6 (2000): 285-301; Philip D. Stern, Of Kings and
Moabites: History and Theology in 2 Kings 3 and the Mesha Inscription," HUCA 64 (1993): 1-14;
and John Barclay Burns, "Why Did the Besieging Army Withdraw? (II Reg 3,27)," AW 102
(1990): 187-94.
116 A. Goetze, Old Babylonian Omen Texts (YOS 10; New Haven: Yale University Press,
1947). Other omina in this series relate to military failures and successes.
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452
Journal of Biblical Literature 127, no. 3 (2008)
it may be compared to Elishas prophecy. From these observations, the two aspects
of the story?siege and the felling of fruit trees?belong together just as much as in
the Assyrian sources.117
But another look at the structure of Deuteronomy 20 reveals that this com
pendium of war laws uses specific scenarios to illustrate more general points and
thus should not be confined to siege warfare. Verses 2-8 treat the priests address to
the troops before the battle. Verse 9 transitions to the appointment of commanders.
The next paragraph sets forth rules of engagement, beginning with cities that sur
render prior to battle (w. 10-11) and then turning to those which do not (w. 12
14). This progressive unfolding of a battle scenario continues in w. 19-20, which
concerns a tactic for forcing cities to capitulate. Since siegecraft was the predominant
form of warfare for all armies of ancient Western Asia and the Eastern Mediter
ranean, it is not surprising that the author chooses to begin with this scenario in w.
10-11. That siege is still the focus of w. 19-20 seems therefore to be governed by the
legal logic of the chapter, not a concern to formulate a protest against Assyrian impe
rial ideology. Just as the rules of engagement in w. 10-18 are not to be...
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