Kiryat Arba
Qiryat Arba or Kiryat Arba (קרית־ארבע "Town of the Four [Giants]"
, Standard Hebrew Qiryat Arbaʿ, Tiberian Hebrew Qiryaṯ-ʾarbaʿ; KJV Bible Kirjath-arba) is an Israeli settlement adjoining the city of Hebron. The area dates back to Abraham and Sarah.
In the Book of Joshua (14:15) it says: "Now the name of Hebron previously was Kiryat Arba, he [Arba] was the great man among the giants [Anakim]..." .
According to the rabbinical commentator Rashi, Kiryat Arba ("Town of Arba") means either the town (kirya) of Arba himself, the giant who had three sons, or is refering to four giants: Arba and his three sons, Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmi who are described as being the sons of a "giant" in the Book of Numbers (13:22): "On the way through the Negev, they (Joshua and Caleb) came to Hebron where [they saw] Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmi, descendants of the Giant (ha-anak)..." which is according to the Targum and Saadia Gaon, but some say that Anak ("Giant") is a proper name (Targum Jonathan and the Septuagint). , and that he, Anak, may have been the father of the three others mentioned in the Book of Numbers as living in Hebron which the Book of Joshua says was previously called Kiryat Arba.
Palestinian Arabs regard it as their own. After the Six-Day War in 1967, Jewish settlers founded the modern city of Kiryat Arba immediately east of the modern Arab city of Hebron, and a dispute over the legal status of Kiryat Arba and the presence of its settlers continues unresolved to the present day.
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