Kiriath-Jearim

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the modern town near Abu Gosh, see Kiryat Ye'arim.
Kiryat Ye'arim, 2022
Kiryat Ye'arim, 2022

Kiriath-Jearim (also Kiryat Ye'arim;

Ancient Greek: Καριαθιαριμ Kariathiarim; Latin: Cariathiarim) 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 (see, e.g. Joshua 15:60;

2 Samuel 6:2; 1 Chronicles 13:6), which implies the city was affiliated with Baal worship at an earlier date.[2]

History

Kiryat Ye'arim, 1948
Kiryat Ye'arim, 1948

In

Claude Reignier Conder and Henderson have identified it with the site now known as Khirbet 'Erma, a ruin located 3.6 kilometres (2.2 mi) south of Kasla and 6.4 kilometres (4.0 mi) east of Beit Shemesh.[3] However, starting with Edward Robinson, biblical Kiriath-Jearim has been more often identified with Deir el-Azar (Tel Qiryat Yearim),[4][5][6] a place near Abu Ghosh on a hill where the Deir El-Azar Monastery currently stands, about 7 mi (11 km) 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.[7]

Kiriath-Jearim was described as a

Joshua 9:17). It was a key landmark in identifying the border between the tribes of Judah and Benjamin (see Joshua 15:9 & 18:14, 15). It is mentioned as the place the Ark of the Covenant may have been moved after being in Beit Shemesh (1 Samuel 6:21–7:2). About 60 years (2 Samuel 6) 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 (meaning City of Baal, or City of the Lord)[8] 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" (Phoenician or other) storm gods.[9]

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 (see Jeremiah 26:20). 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

Shobal (possibly a descendant of Caleb
) 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 (see Nehemiah 7:29).

See also

References

  1. ^ The spelling Kiryat Yearim may be found, for example, in Silberman and Finkelstein's (2001) The Bible Unearthed, page 125.
  2. ^ "Temporary Home of The Ark of The Covenant". Biblical Archaeology Review. 43 (4): 12. 3 June 2017.
  3. The Survey of Western Palestine
    , Memoirs, III, pp. 43–ff.
  4. JSTOR 3768522
    .
  5. ^ Robinson, E. (1856). Later Biblical Researches in Palestine and in the Adjacent Regions - A Journal of Travels in the Year 1852. Boston: Crocker & Brewster. p. 156.
  6. JSTOR 23488212
    .
  7. ^ "The Shmunis Family Foundation Excavations at Kiriath-Jearim". The Shmunis Family Foundation Excavations at Kiriath-Jearim. Retrieved 2019-12-29.
  8. ^ "The amazing name Kiriath-baal: meaning and etymology". Abarim Publications. Retrieved 2022-10-17.
  9. ^ Finkelstein, Israel (2019). Ido Koch, Thomas Romer and Omer Sergi (ed.). Kiriath-baal/Baalah, Gibeah: A Geographical History Challeng. Leuven. pp. 211–222. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
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