KIRJATHJEARIM [smith]
(
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, ch (
Joshua 15:9) and as the point at which the western and southern boundaries of Benjamin coincided, ch. (
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. (
1Â 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. (
1Â Chronicles 13:5,6;
2Â Chronicles 1:4;
2Â 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.
