קִרְיָה
qir.yah
town
Lexicon Entry
Lexicon data from STEPBible TIPNR, Tyndale House, Cambridge. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
What Original Readers Understood
Supported# QIR'YAH (קִרְיָה): Town The Hebrew word *qir'yah* appears 29 times in the Bible and carries the straightforward meaning of "town"—a settled human community distinct from villages or open countryside. As a noun, it represents a basic category in biblical geography and social organization, referring to populated urban or semi-urban centers where people lived in clustered settlements. The frequency of this term (29 occurrences) suggests it was a common and necessary word in biblical Hebrew for describing inhabited places. Its consistency across the biblical text indicates that distinguishing between different types of settlements—using words like *qir'yah* for towns—was an important feature of how biblical authors depicted the landscape and organized their narratives. The word appears sufficient times to indicate it was not a rare or specialized term but rather part of everyday vocabulary for discussing human settlements. While the lexicon data provided does not detail the specific contexts where *qir'yah* appears or how it compared to related settlement terms, the definition and occurrence count establish that this was a standard Hebrew designation for towns—regular, recognizable human communities that formed the basis of settled life in the ancient Near Eastern world depicted in the Bible.
Source data & methodology
Occurrences in Scripture
29 total occurrences across the text
He scorns the tumult of the city, neither does he hear the shouting of the driver.
Psalms 48:2Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion, on the north sides, the city of the great King.
Proverbs 10:15The rich man’s wealth is his strong city. The destruction of the poor is their poverty.
Proverbs 11:10When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices. When the wicked perish, there is shouting.
Proverbs 18:11The rich man’s wealth is his strong city, like an unscalable wall in his own imagination.
Proverbs 18:19A brother offended is more difficult than a fortified city. Disputes are like the bars of a fortress.
Proverbs 29:8Mockers stir up a city, but wise men turn away anger.
Isaiah 1:21How the faithful city has become a prostitute! She was full of justice. Righteousness lodged in her, but now there are murderers.
Isaiah 1:26I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you shall be called ‘The city of righteousness, a faithful town.’
Isaiah 22:2You that are full of shouting, a tumultuous city, a joyous town; your slain are not slain with the sword, neither are they dead in battle.
Isaiah 24:10The confused city is broken down. Every house is shut up, that no man may come in.
Isaiah 25:2For you have made a city into a heap, a fortified city into a ruin, a palace of strangers to be no city. It will never be built.
Isaiah 25:3Therefore a strong people will glorify you. A city of awesome nations will fear you.
Isaiah 26:5For he has brought down those who dwell on high, the lofty city. He lays it low. He lays it low even to the ground. He brings it even to the dust.
Isaiah 29:1Woe to Ariel! Ariel, the city where David encamped! Add year to year; let the feasts come around;
Isaiah 32:13Thorns and briers will come up on my people’s land; yes, on all the houses of joy in the joyous city.
Isaiah 33:20Look at Zion, the city of our appointed festivals. Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a quiet habitation, a tent that won’t be removed. Its stakes will never be plucked up, nor will any of its cords be broken.
Jeremiah 49:25How is the city of praise not forsaken, the city of my joy?
Lamentations 2:11My eyes fail with tears. My heart is troubled. My liver is poured on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the young children and the infants swoon in the streets of the city.
Hosea 6:8Gilead is a city of those who work iniquity; it is stained with blood.
Micah 4:10Be in pain, and labor to give birth, daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail; for now you will go out of the city, and will dwell in the field, and will come even to Babylon. There you will be rescued. There Yahweh will redeem you from the hand of your enemies.
Habakkuk 2:8Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples will plunder you, because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city and to all who dwell in it.
Habakkuk 2:12Woe to him who builds a town with blood, and establishes a city by iniquity!
Habakkuk 2:17For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, and the destruction of the animals, which made them afraid; because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to every city and to those who dwell in them.
Numbers 21:28for a fire has gone out of Heshbon, a flame from the city of Sihon. It has devoured Ar of Moab, The lords of the high places of the Arnon.
Deuteronomy 2:36From Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, and the city that is in the valley, even to Gilead, there was not a city too high for us. Yahweh our God delivered up all before us.
Deuteronomy 3:4We took all his cities at that time. There was not a city which we didn’t take from them: sixty cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.
1 Kings 1:41Adonijah and all the guests who were with him heard it as they had finished eating. When Joab heard the sound of the trumpet, he said, “Why is this noise of the city being in an uproar?”
1 Kings 1:45Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet have anointed him king in Gihon. They have come up from there rejoicing, so that the city rang again. This is the noise that you have heard.