Why does the Hebrew Bible label a wide range of religious, political, and commercial practices as “whoring”? Why are both Israelite and non-Israelite cities sometimes called “whores” in biblical polemical texts? Why are foreign women, foreign gods, and some of Israel’s leaders seen as traps? Drawing on insights from metaphor theories, material evidence of ancient Levantine hunting and trapping methods, and ancient, medieval, and modern interpretations of biblical texts, this monograph offers the first systematic exploration of a metaphor network in the Hebrew Bible in which imagery of illicit sex, hunting, and trapping play a central role. It illuminates how interactions between these concepts generate alluring yet threatening images of what biblical authors consider as “foreign” or “other”.