1 Samuel 6:21

6:21 So they sent messengers to the residents of Kiriath Jearim, saying, “The Philistines have returned the ark of the Lord. Come down here and take it back home with you.”

Yosua 18:14

18:14 It then turned on the west side southward from the hill near Beth Horon on the south and extended to Kiriath Baal (that is, Kiriath Jearim), a city belonging to the tribe ¹  of Judah. This is the western border. ² 

Yosua 18:2

18:2 seven Israelite tribes had not been assigned their allotted land. ³ 

1 Samuel 6:2

6:2 the Philistines called the priests and the omen readers, saying, “What should we do with the ark of the Lord? Advise us as to how we should send it back to its place.”

1 Samuel 6:1

The Philistines Return the Ark

6:1 When the ark of the Lord had been in the land ⁴  of the Philistines for seven months, ⁵ 

1 Samuel 13:5-6

13:5 For the battle with Israel the Philistines had amassed 3,000 ⁶  chariots, 6,000 horsemen, and an army as numerous as the sand on the seashore. They went up and camped at Micmash, east of Beth Aven. 13:6 The men of Israel realized they had a problem because their army was hard pressed. So the army hid in caves, thickets, cliffs, strongholds, ⁷  and cisterns.

Mazmur 132:6

132:6 Look, we heard about it ⁸  in Ephrathah, ⁹ 

we found it in the territory of Jaar. ¹⁰ 

[18:14]  ¹ tn Heb “sons,” here referring to the tribe.

[18:14]  ² tn Or “side.”

[18:2]  ³ tn Heb “there were left among the sons of Israel who had not divided up their inheritance seven tribes.”

[6:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “field.”

[6:1]  ⁵ tc The LXX adds “and their land swarmed with mice.”

[13:5]  ⁶ tn Many English versions (e.g., KJV, NASB, NRSV, TEV) read “30,000” here.

[13:6]  ⁷ tn Or perhaps “vaults.” This rare term also occurs in Judg 9:46, 49. Cf. KJV “high places”; ASV “coverts”; NAB “caverns”; NASB “cellars”; NIV, NCV, TEV “pits”; NRSV, NLT “tombs.”

[132:6]  ⁸ tn Rather than having an antecedent, the third feminine singular pronominal suffix here (and in the next line) appears to refer to the ark of the covenant, mentioned in v. 8. (The Hebrew term אָרוֹן [’aron, “ark”] is sometimes construed as grammatically feminine. See 1 Sam 4:17; 2 Chr 8:11.)

[132:6]  ⁹ sn Some understand Ephrathah as a reference to Kiriath-jearim because of the apparent allusion to this site in the next line (see the note on “Jaar”). The ark was kept in Kiriath-jearim after the Philistines released it (see 1 Sam 6:21-7:2). However, the switch in verbs from “heard about” to “found” suggests that Ephrathah not be equated with Jair. The group who is speaking heard about the ark while they were in Ephrath. They then went to retrieve it from Kiriath-jearim (“Jaar”). It is more likely that Ephrathah refers to a site near Bethel (Gen 35:16, 19; 48:7) or to Bethlehem (Ruth 4:11; Mic 5:2).

[132:6]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “fields of the forest.” The Hebrew term יָעַר (ya’ad, “forest”) is apparently a shortened alternative name for קִרְיַת יְעָרִים (qiryat yÿ’arim, “Kiriath-jearim”), the place where the ark was kept after it was released by the Philistines and from which David and his men retrieved it (see 1 Chr 13:6).