Ataroth
Ataroth ("crowns") is a place-name the Hebrew Bible attaches to several distinct sites — at least one east of the Jordan in Gadite territory, one or two on the Ephraimite border, and one in Judah. UPDV preserves the spelling variants that mark the cities apart: plain Ataroth, the compound Ataroth-addar (also Ataroth-orech), the Gadite Atrothshophan, and the Judahite Atroth-beth-joab.
The Trans-Jordan City of Gad
When the Reubenites and Gadites ask Moses for the pasturelands east of the Jordan, Ataroth heads their list of towns: "Ataroth, and Dibon, and Jazer, and Nimrah, and Heshbon, and Elealeh, and Sebam, and Nebo, and Beon" (Num 32:3). After the request is granted, the rebuilding notice reads, "And the sons of Gad built Dibon, and Ataroth, and Aroer" (Num 32:34). The same chapter then names a separate Gadite town that UPDV renders "Atrothshophan" (Num 32:35), sometimes treated as a fourth distinct Ataroth.
On the Ephraim Border
A different Ataroth marks the southern boundary of the house of Joseph: the line "went out from Beth-el to Luz, and passed along to the border of the Archites to Ataroth" (Josh 16:2). The eastern boundary of Ephraim proper is described with the compound form: "the border of their inheritance eastward was Ataroth-addar, to Beth-horon the upper" (Josh 16:5). Whether Josh 16:7 — "it went down from Janoah to Ataroth, and to Naarah, and reached to Jericho" — names that same town again or a second Ephraimite Ataroth is left open. The Benjamin allotment touches the same point under yet another spelling: "the border went down to Ataroth-orech, by the mountain that lies on the south of Beth-horon the nether" (Josh 18:13), where Ataroth-orech corresponds to Ataroth-addar in Josh 16:5.
The City of Judah
A fourth Ataroth appears in the Calebite genealogy of Judah, where the sons of Salma include "Beth-lehem, and the Netophathites, Atroth-beth-joab, and half of the Manahathites, the Zorites" (1Ch 2:54). The compound name fixes the place in the hill country south of Jerusalem alongside Bethlehem and Netophah.