When the angel appeared to Alma and talked to him, he used a peculiar Semitic expression: "If thou wilt of thyself be destroyed, seek no more to destroy the church of God" (Alma 36:9). According to Hugh Nibley, this is the Semitic threat or warning to a child. Doesn't the angel mean [to say] "If you don't want to be destroyed, seek no more to destroy the church of God"? No, in the Semitic language you have to say it this way, because he repeats the very same thing. In Hebrew you say to a child, "Don't do that if you want to get spanked." That's the way you say it. We would say, "Do that and you'll get spanked," but they say, "Don't do that if you want to get spanked.' It sounds contradictory to us, but that is the normal way. That's how you have to put it. That's the way it is put here, and it catches you right off. It's a very proper Semitic warning here. [Hugh W. Nibley, Teachings of the Book of Mormon, Semester 2, p. 455]