Place
Tekoa
Named in 7 verses across 4 books, first in 2 Samuel 14:2.
In the Bible
All 7 verses, in Bible order. Text from the Berean Standard Bible; verse numbers follow the KJV.
2 Samuel
- 2 Samuel 14:2
So Joab sent to Tekoa to bring a wise woman from there. He told her, “Please pretend to be a mourner; put on clothes for mourning and do not anoint yourself with oil. Act like a woman who has mourned for the dead a long time.
- 2 Samuel 14:4
When the woman from Tekoa went to the king, she fell facedown in homage and said, “Help me, O king!”
- 2 Samuel 14:9
But the woman of Tekoa said to the king, “My lord the king, may any blame be on me and on my father’s house, and may the king and his throne be guiltless.”
2 Chronicles
- 2 Chronicles 11:6
He built up Bethlehem, Etam, Tekoa,
- 2 Chronicles 20:20
Early in the morning they got up and left for the Wilderness of Tekoa. As they set out, Jehoshaphat stood up and said, “Hear me, O people of Judah and Jerusalem. Believe in the LORD your God, and you will be upheld; believe in His prophets, and you will succeed.”
Jeremiah
- Jeremiah 6:1
“Run for cover, O sons of Benjamin; flee from Jerusalem! Sound the ram’s horn in Tekoa; send up a signal over Beth-haccherem, for disaster looms from the north, even great destruction.
Amos
- Amos 1:1
These are the words of Amos, who was among the sheepherders of Tekoa—what he saw concerning Israel two years before the earthquake, in the days when Uzziah was king of Judah and Jeroboam son of Jehoash was king of Israel.
Dictionary
From Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), as attached to this record by Theographic. Its geography and “modern” descriptions date from the 1890s. Easton wrote in 1897, and some of his views are now debated.
Read Easton’s entry
Pitching of tents; fastening down, a town of Judah, about 12 miles south of Jerusalem, and visible from the city. From this place Joab procured a “wise woman,” who pretended to be in great affliction, and skilfully made her case known to David. Her address to the king was in the form of an apologue, similar to that of Nathan (2 Sam. 12:1-6). The object of Joab was, by the intervention of this woman, to induce David to bring back Absalom to Jerusalem (2 Sam. 14:2, 4, 9).
This was also the birth-place of the prophet Amos (1:1).
It is now the village of Teku’a, on the top of a hill among ruins, 5 miles south of Bethlehem, and close to Beth-haccerem (“Herod’s mountain”).