You need to know the territory!

The value of the Torah for us does not consist in requiring us to do anything. The value is to see the reputation that Yahweh has established for himself, read through the lens of the ANE context. From the Torah, we can know that the God we worship is not petty, arbitrary, co-dependent, indifferent, or (conversely) cruel, tyrannical, or monstrous. The Torah and the covenant establish these qualities (reputation) in the context of the ANE cultural environment. This is useful to know because many modern people often do not know this. Unfortunately, misreading the Torah usually gives us the opposite impressions because we do not understand the context.—Walton and Walton, The Lost World of the Torah, 228