Kiriath-Jearim


Kiriath-Jearim was a city in the Land of Israel. It is mentioned 18 times in the Hebrew Bible. The biblical place was identified with Abu Ghosh.

Etymology

Other names are Kiriath-Ba'al, Ba'alah and Ba'ale-Judah, which implies the city was affiliated with Baal worship at an earlier date.

History

In Eusebius' Onomasticon, Kiryat Ye'arim is placed about 9 Roman miles, or about, from Jerusalem. Palestine Exploration Fund explorers Claude Reignier Conder and Henderson have identified it with the site now known as Khirbet 'Erma, a ruin located south of Kasla and east of Beit Shemesh. However, starting with Edward Robinson, biblical Kiriath-Jearim has been more often identified with Deir el-Azar, 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 and the Collège de France.
Kiriath-Jearim was described as a Hivite city linked to the Gibeonites. It was a key landmark in identifying the border between the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. It is mentioned as the place the Ark of the Covenant was moved to after being in Beit Shemesh. More than twenty years afterward, the ark was moved to Jerusalem and placed in a tent outside the palace of David.
Kiriath-Jearim's change in designation from Kiriath-Ba'al may indicate the population change that took place after Joshua's military campaign to take possession of the land from its previous inhabitants. According to Israel Finkelstein 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 was worshipped as Baal, before that title became a negative link with "foreign" storm gods.
The Hebrew Bible identifies at least one prophet of God who came from this town. Uriah, the son of Shemaiah, was from Kiriath-Jearim, and was a contemporary of Jeremiah who prophesied against Jerusalem. This aroused the wrath of King Jehoiakim 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.
The Books of Chronicles identifies Shobal as the "father of Kiriath-Jearim", 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.