Kerioth

Two distinct settlements bear the name Kerioth — one a town in southern Judah, the other a fortified Moabite city whose fall figures in two prophetic oracles of judgment on Moab.

Kerioth-Hezron in Judah

In the southern boundary list of Judah, Kerioth shows up under a compound form and is identified with another known town: "and Hazor-hadattah, and Kerioth-hezron (the same is Hazor)" (Jos 15:25). The note that Kerioth-hezron is Hazor places it among the cities of Judah's southern district.

Kerioth in Moab

The Moabite Kerioth (also spelled Kirioth) appears only in oracles against Moab and is consistently named alongside the city's strongholds and palaces.

Jeremiah's catalogue of doom sweeps Kerioth into a list of Moabite cities awaiting judgment: "and on Kerioth, and on Bozrah, and on all the cities of the land of Moab, far or near" (Jer 48:24). Later in the same oracle, Kerioth's capture stands for the collapse of Moabite military will: "Kerioth is taken, and the strongholds are seized, and the heart of the mighty men of Moab at that day will be as the heart of a woman in her pangs" (Jer 48:41).

Amos's oracle directs the same judgment fire specifically at Kerioth's royal architecture: "but I will send a fire on Moab, and it will devour the palaces of Kerioth; and Moab will die with tumult, with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet" (Am 2:2). Together the two prophets present Kerioth as a Moabite city of palaces and strongholds whose loss would mean the political end of Moab.