JARMUTH

JARMUTH (Heb. יַרְמוּת). (1) Canaanite royal city mentioned in a 14th-century B.C.E. Akkadian letter found at Tell al-Ḥasī as Ia-ra-mu-ti. At the time of Joshua's conquest, Piram king of Jarmuth joined the coalition led by Adoni-Zedek king of Jerusalem against Gibeon; he was defeated at Aijalon along with the others and was killed at Makkedah (Josh. 10:3, 5, 23). The king of Jarmuth is also included in the list of defeated Canaanite kings (Josh. 12:11). Jarmuth became part of Judah and at the time of the Judahite monarchy it was included in the northern Shephelah district together with Adullam, Socoh, and Azekah (as preserved in Josh. 15:35). It was resettled by Judahites in the time of Nehemiah (Neh. 11:29). Eusebius locates it ten miles from Eleutheropolis, on the way to Jerusalem (Onom. 106:24–25). It has been identified with Khirbat al-Yarmūk (Eusebius calls it Iermochus), a large and prominent mound east of Kafr Zakariyya where surveys have revealed a large city surrounded by a massive stone wall from the Early Bronze Age and a smaller but higher mound containing pottery ranging from the Late Bronze to Byzantine periods. (2) The Jarmuth listed as a Levitical city of Issachar in Joshua 21:29 should be read Ramoth (I Chron. 6:58) or Remeth (Josh. 19:21). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Abel, Geog, 2 (1938), 356; Albright, in: BASOR, 77 (1940), 31; EM, 3 (1965), 865–7; Aharoni, Land, index. (Michael Avi-Yonah)