TEKOA tə kō’ ə (תְּקֹ֔ועָה; LXX Θεκώε). KJV TEKOAH in 2 Samuel 14:2, 4, 9 and in RSV of 1 Maccabees 9:33; KJV THECOE, thĭ kō', in 1 Maccabees 9:33.

1. Tekoa, the wilderness. Here is a rather wild, arid, and stony district, a dozen m. S of Jerusalem, deserted “save for donkeys and sure-footed men.” Its soil is a kind of chalk marl, the “frontier of tillable land.” Beyond is desert, the part toward the E characterized by Dr. George Adam Smith as “fifteen miles of chaos sinking to...the Dead Sea.”

There was scant cultivation in valley pockets where was preserved the once rich if sparse vegetable mold that overlay the hills of Judah, when anciently they afforded a forest. The region produced olives and a peculiar fruit called “sycomore fruit” (Amos 7:14 KJV), ancient tradition making it proverbial both for oil and honey. Shepherds and flocks must have found shelter in the many caves of the hilly land. In certain sections Bedouin tent dwellers produced a coarse kind of millet.

In this general district, David, the fugitive from vindictive Saul, spent much time (1 Sam 23:26). It was in the wilderness of Tekoa that Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, defeated the Ammonites and their allies (2 Chron 20:20ff.), who had invaded Judah, coming by Engedi. When the Judeans found the invaders already dispersed and slaughtered, they called the scene “the valley of blessing.”

In this district, John the Baptist was equipped for his “austere mission,” finding in its outlook figures of judgment: vipers fleeing from the wrath to come (Matt 3:7). Also in this general locality, the Lord met His threefold temptation, coming through victoriously, having been with the wild beasts (Mark 1:13). When Bacchides, the Syrian general under Demetrius, took up the campaign against the Maccabees, it was to the wilderness of Tekoa that two of the brothers, Simon and Jonathan, escaped (1 Macc 9:33).

2. A town. Tekoa is mentioned a number of times in Scripture, though not listed among Judah’s possessions in the OT Heb. of Joshua 15, but is found in the LXX of v. 59.

Both Jeremiah and Amos lived in the face of the wilderness of Judea. In Tekoa, the rustic Amos was born in the 8th century b.c., a prophet to the northern kingdom. Reading his book, one has the feeling that Amos haunted the heights, living in sight of “very wide horizons.”

Tekoa is in Judah, ten m. S of Jerusalem, and half as far S of Bethlehem, on a prominent elevation 2,700 ft. high, from which the Mount of Olives is visible, also Mount Nebo beyond the Dead Sea, the place from which Moses viewed the Promised Land. It looks down on a mass of desert hills. The scenes that influenced the herdsman of Tekoa are reflected graphically in Amos 4:13 and 5:8. The town lies between two valleys cutting deeply down to the Dead Sea through the wilderness of Judea.

According to 1 Chronicles 2:24 and 4:5, this place was extant at the time of the Heb. conquest of Canaan, having been founded by Ashhur, half-brother to Caleb (see 3). In 2 Samuel 14 is the record regarding the wise woman, “the Tekoite,” whom Joab, David’s general, employed to bring back by the use of a ruse, the fugitive Absalom. Certain Tekoites were engaged in wall-building. They were public spirited men, in contrast to their nobles who did not take part in the work. Whether these men were actually of Tekoa, or had adopted the name after settling in the capital, is undeterminable (Neh 3:5, 27). Tekoa is not mentioned by Ezra as one of the repopulated towns (ch. 2). In Tekoa lived Ira son of Ikkesh “the Tekoite” (2 Sam 23:26).

Rehoboam of the southern kingdom thought Tekoa of sufficient importance to warrant fortification (2 Chron 11:6; intimated by Josephus in Antiq. VIII. x. 1). The place was strategically situated as a military post for the protection of Jerusalem. Its defenses were maintained even in Jeremiah’s time, as a station for trumpet-signaling, in connection with which the prophet gives a play on the word (Jer 6:1).

Tekoa was a city of some prominence in early Christian centuries and in the Middle Ages. In the opening years of the 6th cent., a monastery was erected by a man named Saba; shortly after his death it became the scene of conflict between the orthodox and the Monophysites. A certain Willibald of some two centuries later made report of a church and a prophet’s grave in Tekoa. In the times of the Crusades, many Christians inhabiting Tekoa aided the Franks during the first siege of Jerusalem. The place was destroyed by Turks in a.d. 1138, citizens escaping to a large cave. The site of Amos’ tomb was confirmed by Isaac Chelo, a.d. 1134 (HDB, IV, 693). A number of traditions have centered in this place. Nathanael was one of the condemned infants of Herod’s slaughter, but he escaped to Tekoa. From near the tomb of Amos, the prophet Habbakuk was carried by angels to Babylon. Prophets met there to discuss divine things.

It seems most likely that the Tekoa of 1 Chronicles 2:24 and 4:5 is the town and not a man, no further mention of a man by that name being made. Its father (i.e. founder) was Ashhur, descendant of Hezron, grandson of Judah (Gen 46:12). See Amos.

Bibliography G. A. Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land (1896); J. Bright, History of Israel (1959), 244, 360.