I. Name
Baal-judah is an appellation of the town of Kiriath-jearim, the element ‘Judah’ distinguishes it from other localities called by the name Baal (compare byt lḥm yhwdh). It was identified at Deir el-ʿAzhar, a tell near modern Abu-ghosh, about 12 km west-northwest of Jerusalem.
II. Identity
The place appears only once, in a corrupted form, in the introduction to the story of the transfer of the Ark to Jerusalem (2 Sam. 6.2). MT has mbʿly yhwdh (“from the citizens of Judah”). However, not only does t…