(Heb. Keriyoth', קְרַיּוֹת, cities; Sept. in Jeremiah Καριώθ, in Genesis 27:41 v. r. Ἀκκαριώθ and Ἀκκαρών , elsewhere πόλεις; Vulg. Carioth; Auth. Vers." Kirioth" in Amos ii, 2), the name of two places.
1. A town in the south of Judah (hence probably included within Simeon), mentioned between Hadattah and Hezron (Joshua 15:25). From the absence of the copulative after it, Reland (Palcest. p. 700,708) suggested that the name ought to be joined with the succeeding, i. q. cities of Hezron, i.e. Hazor itself, as in several ancient versions (but see Keil, ad loc.); and Maurer (Comment. ad loc.) has defended this construction, which the enumeration in Joshua 15:32 :requires, i.e. Kerioth-Hezron =Hazor-Amam. SEE JUDAH, TRIBE OF. It seems to be the place alluded to in the name of Judas Iscariot (Ι᾿σκαριώτης, i.e . אַישׁ קְרַרַיּוֹה, native of Kerioth). Dr. Robinson conjectures (Bibl. Researches, ii, 472) that the site is to be found in the ruined foundations of a small village discovered by him on the slope of a ridge about ten miles south of Hebron, and still called by the equivalent Arabic name el-Kuryetein (comp. De Saulcy's Dead Sea, i, 431; Van de Velde, Narrative, ii, 82). With this agree the plural form of the word, the associated epithets, and the frontier position, suggesting that the place was a fortification of contiguous hamlets for nomades rather than an individual city. (See CITY); (See HAZOR).
2. A strong city of the land of Moab, mentioned in connection with Beth- gamul and Bozrah (Jeremiah 48:24), in the prophetic denunciations of its overthrow by the Babylonian invaders on their way to Palestine (Jeremiah 48:41; Amos 2:2). But for the mention of Kiriathaim in the same connection (from which, however, it is somewhat difficult to distinguish it), we should be inclined (seeRitter's Erdk. 15:583) to locate it at Kureyat on Jebel Attarus, east of the Dead Sea. (See KIRJATH- HUZOTH). Porter confidently identifies it with the present Kureiyeh, six miles east of Busrah, in the plain at the foot of the mountain range of Bashan, where are very extensive remains of former edifices (Damascus, ii, 191 sq.). But the associate names (in the first passage of Jeremiah) appear to indicate a locality south-west of Bozrah, and it is doubtful whether the Mishor (q.v.) of Moab extended so far as this. (See BOZRAH). The Kerioth (cities) in question may therefore be "the ancient cities t! the north of Amman and south-west of Busrah, still bearing the names of Kiriath and Kiriatin, where the edifices are of such gigantic proportions and primitive forms as to induce a strong conviction that they were the work of the early Emim" (Graham, in the Jour. of Sac. Lit. April, 185.8, p. 240).