And they utterly destroyed all that [was] in the city,.... All the inhabitants of it, by the direction of Joshua, and according to the order of the Lord, Deuteronomy 7:1; being guilty of capital crimes, which deserved death, as idolatry, incest, c.
both men and women, young and old neither sex nor age were spared:
and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword; in which creatures chiefly lay the substance of the eastern people; see Job 1:3.