Baalah
Baalah is an ancient city mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Judea in modern-day Israel. Known today as Deir el Azar. It appears across 3 verses in Scripture.
Biblical History
Baalah, also known as Kiriath-jearim and Kiriath-baal, was one of the most significant religious sites in early Israelite history, serving for two decades as the resting place of the ark of the covenant. The city is listed in Joshua 15:9–11 as a boundary point of the tribe of Judah, noted with the alternative name Kiriath-jearim ("city of forests"). After the Philistines captured and then returned the ark following the disasters that befell them (1 Sam. 5–6), the ark was brought to Kiriath-jearim, where it remained for twenty years in the house of Abinadab on the hill (1 Sam. 7:1–2). It was from Baalah/Kiriath-jearim that David later fetched the ark in a great procession (2 Sam. 6:2; 1 Chr. 13:6), an event that ended in tragedy when Uzzah was struck dead for touching the ark. This prompted David to redirect the ark to the house of Obed-edom. The city also appears in Joshua 9:17 as one of the four Gibeonite cities that deceived Israel into making a treaty. Given the ark's extended sojourn there, Baalah/Kiriath-jearim occupies a pivotal place in the history of Israel's worship before the establishment of the Jerusalem temple.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
Baalah is identified with Kiriath-jearim, generally equated with the modern site of Abu Ghosh or the nearby Tell el-Azhar (Deir el-Azar), west of Jerusalem along the road to Jaffa. Recent excavations led by Israel Finkelstein and Thomas Romer have produced significant results at the site, uncovering monumental Iron Age II structures that suggest a major cultic or administrative complex. These discoveries have revived scholarly interest in the site's role as a major cultic center during the period of the monarchy, consistent with the biblical accounts of the ark's extended residence there. The excavations are ongoing and have produced pottery and architectural evidence from the Iron Age I–II periods.
Verse Appearances (3)
1Chr
References
- Orr, J. (ed.) (1915) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Chicago: Howard-Severance Company. [Public Domain]
- OpenBible.info (n.d.) Bible Geocoding. Available at: https://www.openbible.info/geo/. [CC BY 4.0]
- Bagnall, R. et al. (eds.) (n.d.) Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places. Available at: https://pleiades.stoa.org. [CC BY 3.0]
- Wikidata contributors (n.d.) Wikidata. Available at: https://www.wikidata.org. [CC0]
- Lawrence, D. et al. (2025) Villages to Empires: a settlement dataset for the Southern Levant. doi:10.5281/zenodo.15111732. [CC BY 4.0]
- Church of England (1769) The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version. [Public Domain]