Kiriath-Jearim "city of woods" - was a city in the Land of Israel

Land of Israel

The Land of Israel is the Biblical name for the territory roughly corresponding to the area encompassed by the Southern Levant, also known as Canaan and Palestine, Promised Land and Holy Land. The belief that the area is a God-given homeland of the Jewish people is based on the narrative of the...

 mentioned 18 times in the Hebrew Bible

Hebrew Bible

The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...

. It was also referenced by the names Kiriath-Ba'al, Ba'alah and Ba'ale-Judah.

Eusebius says that the city was located about 15 km (9.3 mi) from Jerusalem. It is identified with Deir el-Azar (Tel Qiryat Yearim) today.

Kiriath-jearim was mentioned as a Hivite

Hivites

The Hivites were one group of descendants of Canaan, son of Ham, according to the Table of Nations in .- History : does not list the Hivites as being in the land that was promised to the descendants of Abraham...

 city and connected with the Gibeonites (see Joshua 9:17). It was a key landmark in identifying the border between the tribes of Judah

Tribe of Judah

According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Judah was one of the Tribes of Israel.Following the completion of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelite tribes after about 1200 BCE, Joshua allocated the land among the twelve tribes....

 and Benjamin

Tribe of Benjamin

According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Benjamin בִּנְיָמִין was one of the Tribes of Israel.From after the conquest of the land by Joshua until the formation of the first Kingdom of Israel in c. 1050 BCE, the Tribe of Benjamin was a part of a loose confederation of Israelite tribes...

 (see Joshua 15:9 & 18:14, 15). It is mentioned as the place the Ark of the Covenant

Ark of the Covenant

The Ark of the Covenant , also known as the Ark of the Testimony, is a chest described in Book of Exodus as solely containing the Tablets of Stone on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed...

 was moved after being in Beth-shemesh (1 Samuel 6:21-7:2). About 20 years (1 Sam 7:1) afterward, the ark was moved to Jerusalem and placed in a tent outside the palace of David

David

David was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...

.

Kiriath-jearim's change in designation from Kiriath-Ba'al betrays the population change that took place after Joshua's military campaign, or holy war (Heb., cherem) to take possession of the land from its previous inhabitants. The religious basis for the war is revealed in the city's renaming; the name Baal

Baal

Baʿal is a Northwest Semitic title and honorific meaning "master" or "lord" that is used for various gods who were patrons of cities in the Levant and Asia Minor, cognate to Akkadian Bēlu...

belonged to a pagan deity and, according to the Bible, the God of Israel ordered Joshua and the Israelites to erase the memory of the Ba'al cult (see Joshua 18.14). Interestingly, however, the name change does not reflect the Yahwist religious affiliation of the city's conquerors. Rather, it reflects salient geographical features.