KIRIATH-JEARIM
(Kirʹi·ath-jeʹa·rim) [city of forests].
A Hivite city associated with the Gibeonites (Josh. 9:17), also known as Baalah (Josh. 15:9), Baale-judah (2 Sam. 6:2) and Kiriath-baal. (Josh. 15:60) Kiriath-jearim later came to belong to Judah and bordered on Benjamite territory. (Josh. 15:1, 9; 18:11, 14; Judg. 18:12) Apparently descendants of Judah through Caleb settled there.—1 Chron. 2:3, 50, 52, 53.
In the twelfth century B.C.E., sometime after being returned by the Philistines, the Ark was taken to Kiriath-jearim at the request of the men of nearby Beth-shemesh. It appears to have remained there until moved by King David to Jerusalem some seventy years later.—1 Sam. 6:20–7:2; 1 Chron. 13:5, 6; 16:1; 2 Chron. 1:4.
Jeremiah’s contemporary, the prophet Urijah, was the son of Shemaiah of Kiriath-jearim. (Jer. 26:20) Descendants of those who had lived in the city were also represented among those returning from Babylonian exile.—Ezra 2:1, 2, 25; Neh. 7:6, 7, 29.
Deir al-Azhar is the place commonly suggested as corresponding to the Biblical description of Kiriath-jearim as a city of the mountainous region (Josh. 15:48, 60) on the border between Judah and Benjamin in the vicinity of the other Gibeonite cities. This site is strategically situated atop a hill about eight miles (13 kilometers) from Beth-shemesh and some seven and a half miles (12 kilometers) W-NW of Jerusalem. This location approximately fits Eusebius’ placing Kiriath-jearim once as nine Roman miles (c. 8 English miles; 13 kilometers) and another time as ten Roman miles (c. 9 English miles; 14 kilometers) from Jerusalem. Also, the fact that Deir al-Azhar lies in what at one time seems to have been a well-wooded region accords nicely with the name Kiriath-jearim, “city of forests.”