Seeking to preserve traditions, a Chaldean use of grammar points were used to fix Hebrew interpretation during canonization of the Tenach (5 Books of Moses written in Hebrew form).
A magicians sleight of hand, to calcify a fixed literalized bible of stories for characters that didn't exist, while losing the many interpretations made possible by the original codified language which became lost.
In the restricted literalized interpretation of the Old Testament book of Deutoronomy 20:10 we read:
"When you approach a town to attack it, you shall offer it terms of peace. If it responds peaceably and lets you in, all the people present there shall serve you at forced labor. If it does not surrender to you, but would join battle with you, you shall lay siege to it; and when your God יהוה delivers it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword. You may, however, take as your booty the women, the children, the livestock, and everything in the town—all its spoil—and enjoy the use of the spoil of your enemy, which your God יהוה gives you. Thus you shall deal with all towns that lie very far from you, towns that do not belong to nations hereabout. In the towns of the latter peoples, however, which your God יהוה is giving you as a heritage, you shall not let a soul remain alive. No, you must proscribe them—the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites—as your God יהוה has commanded you..."