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Bible Dictionaries
Kirjath-jearim
Smith's Bible Dictionary
or 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, Joshua 15:9, and as the point at which the western and southern boundaries of Benjamin coincided, Joshua 18:14-15, and in the last two passages, we find that it bore another, perhaps earlier, name - that of the great Canaanite deity Baal, namely Baalah and 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 13:5-6; 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.
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Smith, William, Dr. Entry for 'Kirjath-jearim'. Smith's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/sbd/k/kirjath-jearim.html. 1901.
