The seventh aliyah contains further procedures for a war, specifically what and whom can be taken for spoil in a captured city. And here is mentioned that we are forbidden to cut down fruit trees when we attack a city, showing Judaism's respect for all creatures, and certainly all people. In this aliyah we find the words "For man is a tree of the field". (This is an allusion to the custom of not cutting the hair of a boy until he reaches the age of 3 years old, just as we do not eat the fruit of a newly planted tree until after the third year of its growth.)
This aliyah closes with the procedure for an unsolved murder. The procedure is carried out by the elders of the city closest to where the slain person was found.
