Textbooks play a crucial role in primary and secondary school teaching. Teachers implement them either as the basic framework of their curricula or as the main content of the courses they teach; therefore, textbooks are the bridge between curricular guidelines and instructional practice. Prior to their release, primary and secondary school textbooks must be edited and reviewed according to ideal guidelines. Hence, the primary task of textbook editors is to transform curricular guidelines into textbooks. Such transformation involves understanding and explaining the guidelines, and applying that understanding to the material and instructional design. The words, ”understanding,” ”explanation,” and ”application,” are ”interpretation” in hermeneutics terms. Based on hermeneutics theories, this study analyzed the problems and factors of this transformation process. The main findings of this study were as follows:1. Although textbook editors understand that curricular guidelines are designed to cultivate competence and can facilitate explaining competence indicators, the subject matter of textbooks does not embody guideline ideals because textbook editors do not engage in inquiry approach of instructional design.2. The two factors that create the gap between textbooks and guidelines are the inadequate clarity of curricular guidelines and the lack of competence-oriented instructional design awareness exhibited by textbook editors.To narrow the gap between textbooks and guidelines, the paper indicated that it would be of particular benefit to provide documents that explain curricular guidelines and design professional mechanisms that support textbook development and strengthen the proficiency of textbook editors.