Kiriath-Jearim (also Kiryat Ye'arim; ', "city of woods"; ;

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

: ') was a city in the

Land of Israel The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine. The definition ...

. It is mentioned 18 times in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Abu Ghosh.

Etymology

Other names are Kiriath-Ba'al, Ba'alah and Ba'ale-Judah (see, e.g. Joshua 15:60; 2 Samuel 6:2; 1 Chronicles 13:6), which implies the city was affiliated with

Baal Baal (), or Baʻal, was a title and honorific meaning 'owner' or 'lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power (social and political), power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The ...

worship at an earlier date.

History

Eusebius Eusebius of Caesarea (30 May AD 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilius, was a historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christian polemicist from the Roman province of Syria Palaestina. In about AD 314 he became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima. ...

' '' Onomasticon'', Kiryat Ye'arim is placed about 9

Roman miles The mile, sometimes the international mile or statute mile to distinguish it from other miles, is a British imperial unit and United States customary unit of length; both are based on the older English unit of length equal to 5,280 English f ...

, or about , from

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

Palestine Exploration Fund The Palestine Exploration Fund is a British society based in London. It was founded in 1865, shortly after the completion of the Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem by Royal Engineers of the War Department. The Fund is the oldest known organization i ...

explorers

Claude Reignier Conder Claude Reignier Conder (29 December 1848, Cheltenham – 16 February 1910, Cheltenham) was an English soldier, explorer and antiquarian. He was a great-great-grandson of Louis-François Roubiliac and grandson of editor and author Josiah Conder ...

and Henderson have identified it with the site now known as ''Khirbet 'Erma'', a ruin located south of Kasla and east of . However, starting with Edward Robinson, biblical Kiriath-Jearim has been more often identified with Deir el-Azar (''Tel Qiryat Yearim''), a place near Abu Ghosh on a hill where the Deir El-Azar Monastery currently stands, about west of Jerusalem. This site was the only major biblical site in ancient Judah that had not been excavated, until an excavation began in 2017 by a team from

Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) is a Public university, public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Located in northwest Tel Aviv, the university is the center of teaching and ...

and the . Kiriath-Jearim was described as a Hivite city linked to the Gibeonites (see Joshua 9:17). It was a key landmark in identifying the border between the tribes of Judah and

Benjamin Benjamin ( ''Bīnyāmīn''; "Son of (the) right") blue letter bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3225/kjv/wlc/0-1/ H3225 - yāmîn - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) was the younger of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel, and Jacob's twe ...

(see Joshua 15:9 & 18:14, 15). It is mentioned as the place the

Ark of the Covenant The Ark of the Covenant, also known as the Ark of the Testimony or the Ark of God, was a religious storage chest and relic held to be the most sacred object by the Israelites. Religious tradition describes it as a wooden storage chest decorat ...

may have been moved after being in ( 1 Samuel 6:21– 7:2). More than twenty years afterward, the ark was moved to Jerusalem and placed in a tent outside the palace of

David David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Dam ...

. Kiriath-Jearim's change in designation from Kiriath-Ba'al (meaning City of Baal, or City of the Lord) may indicate the population change that took place after

Joshua Joshua ( ), also known as Yehoshua ( ''Yəhōšuaʿ'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: ''Yŏhōšuaʿ,'' Literal translation, lit. 'Yahweh is salvation'), Jehoshua, or Josue, functioned as Moses' assistant in the books of Book of Exodus, Exodus and ...

's military campaign to take possession of the land from its previous inhabitants. According to

Israel Finkelstein Israel Finkelstein (; born March 29, 1949) is an Israelis, Israeli archaeologist, professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University and the head of the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures at the University of Haifa. Finkelstein is active in the a ...

and Thomas Romer, the possibility that Kiriath-ba‘al/Ba‘alah was the original name of the town, or more correctly its Northern name, hints that the god

YHWH The TetragrammatonPronounced ; ; also known as the Tetragram. is the four-letter Hebrew-language theonym (transliterated as YHWH or YHVH), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four Hebrew letters, written and read from right to left, a ...

was worshipped as

, before that title became a negative link with "foreign" (Phoenician or other) storm gods. The

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Uriah, the son of Shemaiah, was from Kiriath-Jearim, and was a contemporary of

Jeremiah Jeremiah ( – ), also called Jeremias, was one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition, Jeremiah authored the Book of Jeremiah, book that bears his name, the Books of Kings, and the Book of Lamentations, with t ...

who prophesied against Jerusalem (see

Jeremiah 26 Jeremiah 26 is the twenty-sixth chapter of the Book of Jeremiah in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible.Halley, Henry H. ''Halley's Bible Handbook'': An Abbreviated Bible Commentary. 23rd edition. Zondervan Publishing Hou ...

:20). This aroused the wrath of King Jehoiakim (r. 609–598 BC) who sought to put Uriah to death. Uriah escaped to Egypt, where he was apprehended by the king's henchman and extradited to Jerusalem for execution and burial in an unmarked grave (Jeremiah 26:22–23). The writer of the

Books of Chronicles The Book of Chronicles ( , "words of the days") is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Chronicles) in the Christian Old Testament. Chronicles is the final book of the Hebrew Bible, concluding the third section of the Jewish Ta ...

teaches that Shobal (possibly a descendant of

Caleb Caleb ( ; , Tiberian vocalization: , Modern Israeli Hebrew: ) is a figure who appears in the Hebrew Bible as a representative of the Tribe of Judah during the Israelites' journey to the Promised Land. Following the Israelite conquest of Ca ...

) was "the father of Kiriath-Jearim" (see 1 Chronicles 2:50–53), possibly in the sense of being the founder of this town. Descendants of Kiriath-Jearim were among the Jewish exiles who returned to Judea with

Zerubbabel Zerubbabel ( from ) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, a governor of the Achaemenid Empire's province of Yehud Medinata and the grandson of Jeconiah, penultimate king of Judah. He is not documented in extra-biblical documents, and is considered ...

(see Nehemiah 7:29).

References

{{Ark of the Covenant Hebrew Bible cities

Etymology

History

See also

References