Kirjath

Kirjath (meaning city or a city, a vocation, a meeting) was a city belonging to the tribe of Benjamin, listed in Joshua 18:28 among Benjamin's cities. It is generally identified with Kirjath-jearim (city of forests), the famous location where the ark of the covenant rested for twenty years after its return from the Philistines. The abbreviated form Kirjath in Joshua 18:28 is likely the same site as Kirjath-jearim, which stood on the boundary between Judah and Benjamin at a prominent hilltop location controlling the road from the coastal plain to Jerusalem.

The modern identification is with Abu Ghosh or Tell el-Azhar near the village of Deir el-Azar, approximately nine miles west of Jerusalem on the road to Jaffa. The name Kirjath as a standalone designation reflects the ancient practice of using the generic word for city as a proper noun, perhaps when a particular city was so well known in its region that the full compound name was unnecessary. The same site appears under multiple names in the biblical record, reflecting its importance as a major landmark on the routes into the Judean highlands.