KIRIATHAIM (0:7797).—4. A town in a ‘plain’ (my) inhabited by the Emim at the time of Chedor- laomer’s campaign (Gn 14°), mentioned with Heshbon and Elealeh as built by Reuben (Nu 32°), also mentioned with Kedemoth and Mephaath, farther south, and with Beth-peor, Baal-meon, and Beth-jeshimoth (Jos 1318: 19. 30). It appears as a Moabite town in Jer 48%, Ezk 25°, and on the stone of Mesha (line 10) is called Kiryathén. It may be distinct from Kerioth (which see). Accord- ing to the Onomasticon (s. Καριαθαείμ, Καριάθα), it lay 10 Roman miles west of Medeba. The site is uncertain, although many identify Kiria- thaim with the ruin called Karéydt, lying S.W. of Makaur (Macherus) and S. of Jebel ‘Attdris. It is probably to be sought towards the south of the Moab plateau, but may have been near Heshbon. Burckhardt’s identification with et-7’eim, 14 miles W. of Medeba, is now generally abandoned.
LireraTuRE. — Porter, Handbook, 300; Tristram, Land of Moab, 275, 305; G. A. Smith, HGHL 567f.; Buhl, GAP 276f.; Dillmann on Gn 145 and Nu 3287.
2. A city in Naphtali, given to the Gershonite Levites, 1 Ch 6 [Heb.®!). In the parallel passage, Jos 21%, it is called Kartan (which see).
C. R. CoNDER.
KIRIATH-ARBA (y27x np, in Neh 11” ya x7 ’p). —A name which oceurs repeatedly in the OT, always except in Neh 11% with the explanation that it is another name for Hebron, Gn 23? 3057 (both P), Jos 14% 1518 (both JE) 15 207 21" (all P), ἴα 110 For the situation and history see art. HEBRON. Kiriath-arba is probably =Tetrapolis,* ‘four-towns’ (ef. yzv wa ‘seven wells’), the name possibly unplyang that the city had four quarters occupied by four confederate clans. If the name Hebron means ‘confederacy,’ it may have had a similar origin. In the MT of Jos 15% 21" 14% Kiriath-arba is taken as= ‘city of Arba,’ the latter supposed founder of it being called ‘the father of the ‘Anak,’ or ‘the greatest man among the ‘Ana- kim.’ As Moore points out, however, the LXX has preserved the original reading in the first two of these passages, πόλις ᾿Αρβὸκ μητρόπολις (i.e. OX not *28) “Evdx, and in 14 5:39 o7N@ is another mis- correction. It may be noted further that these last two words gave rise to a curious piece of Rabbinical exegesis, ‘ha’ad@m haggad6l’ being supposed to imply that Adam was buried at Kirlath-arba (Hebron), ‘the city of four saints,’ namely, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Adam.
J. A. SELBIE. KIRIATH-ARIM, Ezr 2%.—See K1rIATH-JEARIM.
KIRIATH-BAAL (5y2 nxp ‘city of Baal’).—See KIRIATH-JEARIM.
KIRIATH-HUZOTH (n\s7 n9p ‘ city of streets’ (?), LXX πόλεις ἐπαύλεων, Which perhaps implies a read- ing msn instead of nisn).—One of the places to which Balak first went with Balaam, Nu 22”. It seems to have been near Ir of Moab (v.%), and may have been a suburb of that city. Tristram (Land of Moab, 305) is inclined to identify it with Kiriathaim, others (e.g. Knobel, Keil) think it is the same as Kerioth. C. R. ConpER.
*So eg. Moore and Hommel, the latter of whom identifies Kiriath-arba with the Rubiti of the Tel el-Amarna letters (AHT 234 f.), but see Kénig’s art. on the Habiri in Expos. Times, | March 1900. Sayce and Petrie make Rubdti= Rabbah of Jos 150. |
KIRIATH-SANNAH 3
KIRIATH-JEARIM (oy: np ‘city of thickets’). —One of the chief towns of the Gibeonites, Jos 9!7, on the border of Judah and Benjamin (assigned to the former tribe in Jos 15% δ0 181, Jg 18", to the latter in Jos 18% if Kiriath [which see]=Kiriath- jearim). The position is more particularly deseribed in Jg 18", where the Mahaneh-dan (‘camp of Dan’), which was near Zorah and Eshtaol (Jg 13"), is said to have been ‘ behind’ (i.e. west of) Kiriath-jearim. Kiriath-jearim appears also to have been near Beth-shemesh (1S 62), which was near Zorah. It may have been the city beyond the border of Ben- jamin where Saul first met Samuel (1S 9°: 6 ef. 10?). When the ark was sent back by the Philis- tines, it remained at Kiriath-jearim till the time of David (1 S 7, 2S 6?, where the city is called Baale Judah [but ‘by> is an error for Sys]). In Jos 15" it bears the name Kiriath-baal, ‘city of Baal,’ and it is the same place that is called in Jos 15° and 1 Ch 13° Baalah. Its inhabitants seem to have been related to the Hebronites, 1 Ch 2%. After the Captivity it is mentioned as re-peopled (Neh 7”; Ezr 2%, where Kiriath-arim [oy n77] is a clerical error for Kiriath-jearim [0y: ‘p]; 1 Es 5°, where it appears as Kariathiarius). It is prob- ably Kiriath-jearim that is referred to in Ps 132%, where ‘the field of the wood’ is mentioned as the
lace where the ark wasfound. The prophet Uriah
en-Shemaiah, who was put to death b ehoiakim, was a native of Kiriath-jearim (Jer 26”). In the 4th cent. A.D. (Onomasticon, 5. ‘Cariathiarim’), it was shown 9 Roman miles from Jerusalem, on the way to Diospolis (Lydda), but this would not be near Beth-shemesh or Zorah. In the upper part of the valley of Sorek an ancient ruined site called ‘Erma exists, on the south side of a very rugged ravine. It is evidently a town, with a remarkable rock terrace, and wells in the valley to the east. This site (suggested by Henderson) is suitable, being within sight of the mouth of the ravine, beyond which lies Beth-shemesh in the more open part of the valley, east of Zorah and Eshtaol, which appears to answer to the ‘camp of Dan’ (J/ahaneh- dan). The ruin is on the ridge on which Chesalon (which see) stands, and therefore in the required position on the border which appears to have run north from Kiriath-jearim to Chesalon (Jos 15% 70), or to have left Chesalon in Benjamin, north of the border which followed the valley of Sorek. The whole ridge is covered with copse to the present time. Possibly, Kiriath-jearim is noticed in the Tel el-Amarna letters (No. 106 Berlin) as Bitd Béli or Beth Baal, a city revolting against Jerusalem (others suppose Jerus. itself to be so called in this passage); and it is remarkable that it was one of the few cities that submitted, without fighting, to the Hebrews.