קִרְיַת יְעָרִים
Kirjath-jearim
BDB lists 2 entries for ‘Kirjath-jearim’ fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Proper
- A name of a specific person, place, or people (e.g. Abraham, Zion, Israel).
Every verse where H7157 appears in the Book of Jeremiah — 1 distinct verse. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Hebrew form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
Jeremiah
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
“Kirjath-jearim” is the headline sense of the Hebrew name קרית יערים (Qiryath Yᵉʻârîym). Scripture first uses it in Joshua 9:17. It appears 19 verses across 8 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its uncommon vocabulary. More than a quarter of its appearances fall in Joshua. The sections below give every occurrence and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H7157 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 19
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 19 distinct verses.
- 8 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 8 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #922
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 922 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 19 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Joshua 6 verses 32%
- 1 Chronicles 5 verses 26%
- 1 Samuel 3 verses 16%
By section of the Old Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 19 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 11 verses · 58%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 8 verses · 42%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
- King James Version: Kirjathjearim 14×, Is kirjathjearim 3×
- American Standard Version: Kiriath-jearim 12×, Same is kiriath-jearim 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: Kiriath-jearim 19×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Jearim 12×, Kiriath 12×, Kiriath jearim 8×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H7157 across 20 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H7157 across 20 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H7157 across 21 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H7157 across 39 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in BDB
The 2 senses BDB distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- Kirjath-jearim = "city of forests"
- a city on the northern boundary of Judah and on the western and southern boundaries of Benjamin
Word origin
n.pr.loc. πόλ(ε)ις Ιαρειμ[ν], Καριαθιαρειμ, etc. (city of forests);—city of the Gibeonites Jos 9:17, assigned to Judah Jos 15:60 cf. Ju 18:12(×2), on border of Benj. Jos 15:9 (הַר יְעָרִים v 10, 𝔊 πόλιν Ιαρειν, v. יְעָרִים), 18:14, assigned to Benj. v 28 (יְעָרִים om. by textual error before עָרִים, v. 𝔊); near Beth Shemesh 1 S 6:21, long the abode of ark 7:1, 2; 1 Ch 13:5, 6; 2 Ch 1:4; named in genealogical list 1 Ch 2:50, 52, 53; named also Ne 7:29 = ק׳ עָרִים Ezr 2:25 (read יְעָרִים); c. art. ק׳ הַיְּעָרִים Je 26:20; abbreviated (in poet.) (שְׂדֵי־) יָ֑עַר ψ 132:6; called also קִרְיַת־בַּעַל (Καριαθβααλ) Jos 15:60; 18:14 + v 15 (where read for ק׳ יְעָרִים, so 𝔊 Di Benn Steuern); this abbrev. into בַּעֲלָה, 15:9, 10 [(Ιε)βααλ], also v 11, 29, and מִבַּעֲלֵי יְהוּדָה 2 S 6:2 (read בַּעַל יְה׳, or בַּעֲלַת יְה׳), בַּעֲלָ֑תָה ‖ 1 Ch 13:6 (v. on these ii. בַּעֲלָה). Identif. uncertain; RobBR ii. 11 conj. Kiryat el-ʿEnab, 8 m. + W. of Jerusalem (cf. Καριαθιαρειμ LagOnom.271); ʿErma (HendersonPal. 85, 112, 210 ConderSurvey Mem. iii. 43 ff.), cf. GASmGeogr. 225 f. BuhlGeogr. 166 f.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from קריה (qiryâh) (H7151) — city.
Forms in the corpus
The 18 distinct written forms H7157 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that state’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| יְעָרִֽים | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 2:50 | 5 |
| קִרְיַ֣ת | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 2:52 | 5 |
| קִרְיַ֥ת | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 2:50 | 5 |
| יְעָרִ֔ים | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 2:53 | 4 |
| יְעָרִ֖ים | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 13:6 | 4 |
| יְעָרִ֑ים | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 2:52 | 2 |
| מִ/קִּרְיַ֖ת | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 13:5 | 2 |
| קִרְיַ֤ת | Noun, Proper | Ezra 2:25 | 2 |
| בְּ/קִרְיַ֣ת | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 7:2 | 1 |
| בְּ/קִרְיַ֥ת | Noun, Proper | Judges 18:12 | 1 |
| הַיְּעָרִ֑ים | Noun, Proper | Jeremiah 26:20 | 1 |
| וְ/קִרְיַ֥ת | Noun, Proper | Joshua 9:17 | 1 |
| יְעָרִ֗ים | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 7:1 | 1 |
| יְעָרִים֙ | Noun, Proper | Nehemiah 7:29 | 1 |
| מִ/קִּרְיַ֣ת | Noun, Proper | 2 Chronicles 1:4 | 1 |
| עָרִים֙ | Noun, Proper | Ezra 2:25 | 1 |
| קִרְיַ֔ת | Noun, Proper | Joshua 18:28 | 1 |
| קִרְיַת | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 6:21 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H7157, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derives from
Shares the same root
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
- קריות Qᵉrîyôwth H7152 Kerioth
- קרית ארבע Qiryath ʼArbaʻ H7153 Kirjath-arba
- קרית בעל Qiryath Baʻal H7154 Kirjath-baal
- קרית חצות Qiryath Chutsôwth H7155 Kirjath-huzoth
- קריתים Qiryâthayim H7156 Kiriathaim
- קרית סנה Qiryath Çannâh H7158 Kirjath-sepher
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 9 — not the complete family. 6 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Bible dictionary
Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Kirjath-jearim). A biblical name can be shared by more than one person or place, so an article may treat several.
Easton's Bible Dictionary · M. G. Easton, 1897
City of jaars; i.e., of woods or forests, a Gibeonite town (Josh. 9:17) on the border of Benjamin, to which tribe it was assigned (18:15, 28). The ark was brought to this place (1 Sam. 7:1, 2) from Beth-shemesh and put in charge of Abinadab, a Levite. Here it remained till it was removed by David to Jerusalem (2 Sam. 6:2, 3, 12; 1 Chr. 15:1-29; comp. Ps. 132). It was also called Baalah (Josh. 15:9) and Kirjath-baal (60). It has been usually identified with Kuriet el-Enab (i.e., "city of grapes"), among the hills, about 8 miles north-east of Ain Shems (i.e., Beth-shemesh). The opinion, however, that it is to be identified with Erma, 4 miles east of Ain Shems, on the edge of the valley of Sorek, seems to be better supported. (See KIRJATH.)
The words of Ps. 132:6, "We found it in the fields of the wood," refer to the sojourn of the ark at Kirjath-jearim. "Wood" is here the rendering of the Hebrew word jaar, which is the singular of jearim.
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(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. (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.
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
city of woods
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 18 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 19 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
