(Chinʹne·reth).

1. A fortified city of Naphtali. (Jos 19:32, 35) It is presently identified with Khirbet el-ʽOreimeh (Tel Kinnerot), situated on a mound over 3 km (2 mi) SW of Capernaum, overlooking the NW portion of the Sea of Galilee. Chinnereth appears on the temple walls of Karnak at Thebes, Egypt, in the list of Canaanite cities conquered by Thutmose III (whose reign historians assign to the 16th century B.C.E.).

2. A district or region of Israel attacked by Syrian King Ben-hadad I at the instigation of King Asa of Judah. (c. 962 B.C.E.) (1Ki 15:20; compare 2Ch 16:4.) The expression “all Chinnereth” is usually considered to refer to the fertile Plain of Gennesaret.

3. The early name of the Sea of Galilee. (Nu 34:11) Associating the name with the Hebrew word for harp (kin·nohrʹ), some suggest that it is applied to the lake because of the harp-shaped form of this body of water. The names Sea of Galilee and Sea of Tiberias as well as Gennesaret, probably the Greek form of the name, were used when Jesus was on earth.​—Lu 5:1; Joh 6:1.

In addition to being included among the boundaries of the Promised Land (Nu 34:11), the lake formed part of the W boundary of the Amorite kingdom of Og and, following the Israelite conquest, figured in the W boundary of the tribe of Gad. (De 3:16, 17; Jos 13:24-27) The reference to “the desert plains [Heb., ʽara·vahʹ] south of Chinnereth” (Jos 11:2) evidently means the section of the Jordan Valley S of the Sea of Galilee, known as the Ghor.​—See GALILEE, SEA OF.