(12) In Kirjath-jearim.--Joshua 9:17. The name means "city of forests." The modern name is "city of grapes" (Kuriet el Enab). It is nine miles from Jerusalem, on the Jaffa road. Its original names were Baalah and Kirjath-Baal (Joshua 15:9; Joshua 15:60). It was here that the ark remained for twenty years when sent back by the Philistines (1Samuel 6:20-21; 1Samuel 7:2). "We found it in the fields of the wood" (Psalm 132:6).

Mahaneh ? dan--i.e., the camp of Dan (Judges 13:25). They must have probably encamped here for some little time, as we can hardly suppose that the place would have received the name permanently from the bivouac of one night.

Behind--i.e., to the west of. So "the hinder sea" is the western or Mediterranean Sea (Deuteronomy 9:24; Zechariah 14:8). The site of Mahaneh-dan cannot be identified with certainty, as the position of Eshtaol is unknown.

Verse 12. - Kirjath-jearim (city of forests), otherwise called Kirjath-Baal and Baalah, in the hill country of Judah (Joshua 15:60). It, lay on the border of Benjamin (Joshua 18:14, 15). Its modern representative in all probability is Kurit-el-enab, nine miles from Jerusalem, on the road to Joppa. The district is still very woody. Mahaneh-dan, i.e. the camp of Dan (see ch. 13:25). Behind, i.e. to the west cf. The exact site of Mahaneh-dan has not been identified with certainty. Mr. Williams was shown a site called Beit-Mahanem in the Wady Ismail which answers well in position, but it has not been noticed by any other traveller ('Dictionary of Bible').

17:7-13 Micah thought it was a sign of God's favour to him and his images, that a Levite should come to his door. Thus those who please themselves with their own delusions, if Providence unexpectedly bring any thing to their hands that further them in their evil way, are apt from thence to think that God is pleased with them.And they went up and pitched in Kirjathjearim in Judah,.... Of which place see Joshua 15:9. According to Bunting (a) it was sixteen miles from Zorah and Eshtaol, and this was their first day's march:

wherefore they called the name of that place Mahanehdan unto this day; which signifies the camp of Dan, or of the Danites; so it was called in the times of Samson, Judges 13:25 and is a proof that this expedition was before his time; and it was so called, it seems, in the time of Samuel, the writer of this book:

behold, it is behind Kirjathjearim; to the west of it; for though they are said to pitch in that place, the meaning is, that they pitched near it, in the fields adjacent to it, which were the most proper and convenient for a camp.

(a) Ut supra. (Travels of the Patriarchs, &c. p. 112.)