| Kir'jath-ba'al. Kirjath-jearim — Kir'jath-je'arim (the city of forests), first mentioned as one of the four cities of the Gibeonites, Joshua 9:17 it next occurs as one of the landmarks of the northern boundary of Judah, 15:9 and as the point at which the western and southern boundaries of Benjamin coincided, 18:14, 18:15 and in the last two passages we find that it bore another, perhaps earlier, name—that of the great Canaanite deity Baal, namely See BAALAH and See KIRJATH-BAAL. At this place the ark remained for twenty years. 1 Samuel 7:2 At the close of that time Kirjath-jearim lost its sacred treasure, on its removal by David to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. 1 Chronicles 13:5, 13:6; 2 Chronicles 1:4; 2 Samuel 6:2 etc. To Eusebius and Jerome it appears to have been well known. They describe it as a village at the ninth mile between Jerusalem and Diospolis (Lydda). These requirements are exactly fulfilled in the small modern village of Kuriet-el-Enab—now usually known as Abu Gosh, from the robber chief whose headquarters it was—on the road from Jaffa and Jerusalem. Smith's Bible Dictionary or |