considerations such as theme and genre. So, if we want to understand what, for example, “the city and all that is in it are ḥerem for the LORD” (Josh 6:17) means, in terms of the thought and behavior that we are supposed to adopt as a result of reading it, we first have to understand what all the words mean in their context. We cannot draw conclusions based on the meaning of the English words “utterly destroy,” because those words mean different things for us from what the word ḥerem meant for