Deuteronomy 20 - War, Fear, and Trust in the Lord

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“Horse, and rider” recall the power Israel faced at the sea. Deuteronomy 20 meets a new fear by remembering the Lord who delivered His people, then turns to homes, vineyards, marriages, sieges, and fruit trees. Its commands include severe ancient warfare laws. Christian reading must neither disguise their violence nor carry them forward as permission to attack human enemies. The Church receives this chapter before Christ, whose disciples are commanded to love their enemies.

Orientation

These laws address Israel as an ancient covenant nation preparing for life in the land. A priest speaks courage; scribes announce exemptions; generals lead the army. The text distinguishes distant cities from the nations of the inheritance, and regulates siege construction. The distinction explains the chapter’s structure, not a standing classification Christians may impose on peoples today.

Courage remembers the Deliverer (Deuteronomy 20:1-4)

¹ And if thou shouldest go forth to war against thine enemies, and shouldest see horse, and rider, and a people more numerous than thyself; thou shalt not be afraid of them, for the Lord thy God is with thee, who brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. ² And it shall come to pass whenever thou shalt draw nigh to battle, that the priest shall draw nigh and speak to the people, and shall say to them, ³ Hear, O Israel; ye are going this day to battle against your enemies: let not your heart faint, fear not, neither be confounded, neither turn aside from their face. ⁴ For it is the Lord your God who advances with you, to fight with you against your enemies, and to save you.

The priest’s assurance is grounded in a past act of God: He brought Israel out of Egypt. The sight of more riders and more people must not become the whole account of reality. The Lord who delivered is present. Fear is answered by remembrance before it is answered by military organization.

Yet the command belongs to this ancient setting. A modern leader cannot turn confidence in God into certainty that his own army has God’s cause. Prayer searches our motives and our actions; it does not sanctify a conflict because we have prayed before it. Christ commands enemy-love, and Ephesians 6:12 identifies the Christian struggle as one against spiritual powers rather than flesh and blood.

The Church’s Voice in Worship

Exodus 15:1 praises the Lord’s victory over horse and rider. The Coptic Church sings that Song of Moses as the First Hoos, or first canticle, of the Midnight Praises.¹ Deuteronomy’s echo can therefore be heard within a worshiping memory of deliverance. This is an interpretive connection to a sung Exodus text, not a claim that Deuteronomy 20 itself is appointed in the service.

Remembrance gives courage for the struggle that actually lies before us: telling the truth when fear urges a lie, resisting an angry impulse, persevering in care for a dependent, or asking forgiveness without controlling the response. The Lord’s past mercy keeps the present difficulty from pretending to be absolute.

A house, a vineyard, a marriage, and a fearful heart (Deuteronomy 20:5-9)

⁵ And the scribes shall speak to the people, saying, What man is he that has built a new house, and has not dedicated it? let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the war, and another man dedicate it. ⁶ And what man is he that has planted a vineyard, and not been made merry with it? let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man be made merry with it. ⁷ And what man is he that has betrothed a wife, and has not taken her? let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man take her. ⁸ And the scribes shall speak further to the people, and say, What man is he that fears and is cowardly in his heart? Let him go and return to his house, lest he make the heart of his brother fail, as his own. ⁹ And it shall come to pass when the scribes shall have ceased speaking to the people, that they shall appoint generals of the army to be leaders of the people.

The exemptions preserve the person within the army. A house not yet dedicated, a vineyard not yet enjoyed, and a betrothal not yet completed each justify returning home. Death in battle could hand these gifts to someone else. The nation may not absorb every human hope into its immediate demand.

The fearful man also returns, because his failing heart may weaken his brother’s. The text names fear plainly. It does not tell us that the man’s neighbors despise him or that his fear reveals a worthless soul. Leadership has to recognize limits and the way those limits affect others. Only after the announcements are finished are generals appointed.

For Christian life, courage and humility can belong together. A servant may need to admit exhaustion before it becomes harshness toward everyone he serves. A family may need help rather than another speech about strength. This application does not make the exemptions a psychological diagnosis; it receives their sober acknowledgement that responsibilities, attachments, and fear matter.

The chapter also warns us about shared anxiety. Repeating the worst possible outcome can make fear sound like responsible information. A truthful person can state a danger, take proportionate action, and stop feeding the panic that prevents action. Christ’s peace strengthens responsibility rather than asking us to pretend no danger exists.

Peace offered and the terrible cost of siege (Deuteronomy 20:10-15)

¹⁰ And if thou shalt draw nigh to a city to overcome them by war, then call them out peaceably. ¹¹ If then they should answer peaceably to thee, and open to thee, it shall be that all the people found in it shall be tributary and subject to thee. ¹² But if they will not hearken to thee, but wage war against thee, thou shalt invest it; ¹³ until the Lord thy God shall deliver it into thy hands, and thou shalt smite every male of it with the edge of the sword: ¹⁴ except the women and the stuff: and all the cattle, and whatsoever shall be in the city, and all the plunder thou shalt take as spoil for thyself, and shalt eat all the plunder of thine enemies whom the Lord thy God gives thee. ¹⁵ Thus shalt thou do to all the cities that are very far off from thee, not being of the cities of these nations which the Lord thy God gives thee to inherit their land.

The city is first addressed peaceably. That priority matters, but the terms are not modern equality: submission makes the inhabitants tributary and subject to Israel. If the city resists, the law orders siege, the killing of its males, and the taking of spoil. We must read the severity alongside the opening offer rather than letting the word “peace” conceal what follows.

Matthew 10:12-13 and Luke 10:5 send Christ’s messengers with peace to households. Their commission contains no siege and no forced submission. If the peace is refused, the messengers do not become an army. The comparison shows both a real scriptural concern for peace and the decisive difference in the Gospel’s manner of mission.

These verses cannot justify human ownership, collective reprisals, or violence against civilians today. A person is never spoil for Christians to possess. The Gospel makes the enemy a person to love, not an obstacle whose removal confirms our holiness. The Christian refusal of vengeance must be joined to active protection of those exposed to violence.

When conflict arises in a home or parish, a peace offering requires more than announcing that we are the righteous side. It may require listening, a truthful apology, restitution, and boundaries that make future harm less likely. Christ’s peace cannot be reduced to the stronger party getting its way.

The nations of the inheritance and Christian reception (Deuteronomy 20:16-18)

¹⁶ Of these ye shall not take any thing alive; ¹⁷ but ye shall surely curse them, the Chettite, and the Amorite, and the Chananite, and the Pherezite, and the Evite, and the Jebusite, and the Gergesite; as the Lord thy God commanded thee: ¹⁸ that they may not teach you to do all their abominations, which they did to their gods, and so ye should sin before the Lord your God.

The command for the inheritance cities is still more severe: Israel is to leave nothing alive and place the named nations under the ban. Verse 18 gives the stated reason, preventing Israel from learning their abominations and sinning against God. The reason is covenant fidelity; the means are the violent ancient judgment described in the text. An allegorical application must not make that literal difficulty disappear.

Christian disciples receive their command from Christ. They are not authorized to identify a contemporary people with these nations or to claim divine approval for destroying them. The battle against idolatry now includes renouncing the gods we cultivate within ourselves: appetite for power, hatred nourished as loyalty, and the lie that a holy aim makes any means permissible.

Gems from the Fathers: Bloodshed remains a grave question

St. Athanasius, in Letter 48 to Amun, uses war as an example of how circumstances change moral judgments: “it is not right to kill, yet in war it is lawful and praiseworthy to destroy the enemy”.² His letter concerns bodily purity and marriage, not an exposition of Deuteronomy or a complete theory of defensive war. Its wording is stronger than a claim that every killing in war is simply condemned.

St. Basil’s Letter 188, Canon 13, records a concession concerning homicide in war but advises that those “whose hands are not clean” abstain from communion for three years.³ The two witnesses do not speak with identical emphasis. Read together, they prevent an easy slogan: moral circumstances matter, and bloodshed cannot be treated as spiritually trivial. Basil’s counsel is a historical canonical witness, not an automatic rule a study group can impose on a soldier. Pastoral care belongs to the Church’s responsible shepherds.

Do not destroy tomorrow’s nourishment (Deuteronomy 20:19-20)

¹⁹ And if thou shouldest besiege a city many days to prevail against it by war to take it, thou shalt not destroy its trees, by applying an iron tool to them, but thou shalt eat of it, and shalt not cut it down: Is the tree that is in the field a man, to enter before thee into the work of the siege? ²⁰ But the tree which thou knowest to be not fruit-bearing, this thou shalt destroy and cut down; and thou shalt construct a mound against the city, which makes war against thee, until it be delivered up.

The fruit-bearing tree is spared even when the siege lasts many days. Israel may eat from it but may not cut it down for siegework. Brenton asks whether the tree is a man entering the siege, distinguishing nourishment from a human combatant. Non-fruit-bearing timber can be used for a mound. The restriction puts a boundary around destruction within the very context where rage might seem to have permission for everything.

Matthew 3:10 speaks of the tree that fails to bear good fruit being cut down. The comparison is moral and figurative, not a transfer of these construction rules into the Gospel. Scripture asks what fruit our lives bear. Repentance removes the sin that ruins life; it should preserve the created goods God has entrusted to us.

Fasting, for example, trains desire without declaring food evil. Watchfulness over speech restrains cruelty without silencing every necessary conversation. A conflict with one person does not justify destroying a whole friendship network or making children carry the battle. Restraint must become concrete before anger makes its own law.

The tree remains to nourish another day. In our struggles, a fitting question is what will still be capable of bearing good fruit when the immediate anger has passed. Christ can heal the passion we resist without requiring us to despise creation, the body, or the people He came to save.

Spiritual Fruit

Name the horse and rider that frighten you. Bring one concrete fear to God rather than covering it with brave speech. Recall a particular mercy, seek appropriate help, and identify the faithful act possible today.

Preserve a living good in conflict. Before speaking in anger, decide what you must not destroy: a child’s security, another person’s name, a necessary channel of communication, or the possibility of truthful repair. Protection may require distance; revenge requires another person’s suffering. Keep those aims distinct.

Fight the passion rather than inventing a holy enemy. Confess the hatred or pride that has attached itself to a disagreement. Pray for the threatened and for the person whose wrongdoing must be restrained. Enemy-love is costly precisely because it does not rename evil as good.

The fruit tree stands beside the siege. Its remaining branches testify that destruction has a limit. Ask Christ for courage that does not need contempt and restraint that does not abandon the weak. Let the next act protect life instead of feeding the heat of the battle.

Teaching Notes

Teacher guidance

Give a gentle warning that the chapter contains severe ancient war laws. Avoid triumphalist language and hypothetical instructions for modern warfare. Distinguish Athanasius’s illustration, Basil’s canonical counsel, and the Gospel’s command of enemy-love.

Courage remembers the Deliverer (Deuteronomy 20:1-4)

• Ask: What does remembering deliverance change about fear without making us presumptuous?
• Watch for: Do not treat confidence in God as proof that a present nation or military cause is divinely authorized.

A house, a vineyard, a marriage, and a fearful heart (Deuteronomy 20:5-9)

• Ask: When can acknowledging a limit protect both the person and the community?
• Watch for: Avoid shaming fear, exhaustion, or disability; the text does not disclose every motive for an exemption.

Peace offered and the terrible cost of siege (Deuteronomy 20:10-15)

• Ask: How does Christ’s mission of peace differ from the submission required of these ancient cities?
• Watch for: Do not describe tribute and domination as though they were modern voluntary reconciliation.

The nations of the inheritance and Christian reception (Deuteronomy 20:16-18)

• Ask: Why is it necessary to preserve both the literal difficulty and the Gospel’s different command?
• Watch for: Do not make Athanasius say only defensive necessity, or turn Basil’s counsel into a universal self-applied penalty.

Do not destroy tomorrow’s nourishment (Deuteronomy 20:19-20)

• Ask: What good thing could my anger destroy while claiming to fight something evil?
• Watch for: The fruit-tree command limits destruction; it does not make the surrounding warfare harmless or endorse a scorched-earth ethic.

Sources

Embedded Scripture is from Brenton’s English Septuagint (LXX). Section references use NKJV numbering; the numbered quotations retain Brenton’s own labels. New Testament comparisons are from NKJV.

No lectionary appointment for this chapter is known in the Coptic references consulted.

Footnotes

1. The Holy Psalmody, Midnight Praises, First Hoos, the Song of Moses from Exodus 15. First Hoos text. This worship connection concerns Exodus 15, not an appointment of Deuteronomy 20. ↩

2. St. Athanasius, Letter 48 to Amun, paragraph beginning “But since some evil-disposed persons”, primary text. ↩

3. St. Basil the Great, Letter 188, Canon 13, primary text. ↩