“Devoted to the LORD for destruction”
Now the city and everything in it must be devoted to the LORD for destruction. Only Rahab the prostitute and all those with her in her house will live, because she hid the spies we sent. (Joshua 6:17 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A blanket, disturbing order to annihilate a whole city.
The cultural key
'Devoted to destruction' translates herem, the ban: something removed from ordinary use and handed over completely to God, whether by consecration or by destruction. As the firstfruits of the conquest, Jericho belongs wholly to God like a whole burnt offering, which is why no one may take plunder (the sin that ruins Achan next chapter). The ban is the hardest theme in Joshua, and readers weigh it variously as divine judgment on entrenched Canaanite practice, as the stock rhetoric of ancient holy war, and as deliberate hyperbole. Notably, it is not simply ethnic: the Canaanite Rahab and her household are spared for their faith, while the Israelite Achan is destroyed.
Recovered meaning
Jericho is treated as God's firstfruits, given over entirely to him rather than looted for gain. The ban is genuinely troubling, but Rahab's rescue and Achan's ruin show it turned on allegiance to God, not on bloodline.