Teqoa

Khirbet ad-Deir, part of Teqoa, should not be confused with Khirbet ad-Deir in Hebron Governorate. Teqoa (تقوع, also spelled Tuquʿ) is a Palestinian town in the Bethlehem Governorate, located southeast of Bethlehem in the West Bank. The town is built adjacent to the biblical site of Tekoa (Thecoe), now Khirbet Tuqu’, from which it takes its name. Today's town includes three other localities: Khirbet Ad Deir, Al Halkoom, and Khirbet Teqoa. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), Teqoa had a population of 8,881 in 2007. The town is a part of the 'Arab al-Ta'amira village cluster, along with Za'atara, Beit Ta'mir, Hindaza, Khirbet al-Deir and al-Asakra. Tuqu has a municipal jurisdiction of over 191,262 dunams, but its built-up area consists of 590 dunams, as 98.5% of the village's land was classified as Area C, and 1.5% as Area B in the 1995 accords. Situated in the immediate vicinity is the modern Israeli settlement of Tekoa, established in 1975 as a military outpost. Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are illegal under international law. Strong's Concordance states that Tekoa means in Hebrew "a stockade". Gesenius' lexicon uses "the pitching" in reference to tents. Teqoa is located 12 km (horizontal distance) south-east of Bethlehem. It is bordered by Teqoa wilds to the east, Jannatah town to the north, Al Manshiya and Marah Rabah to the west, and Al Maniya and Kisan villages to the south. According to biblical sources, Ephrathites from Bethlehem and the Calebites from Hebron founded Teqoa. Samuel talks of a "wise woman" of Tekoa in the time of David (). King Rehoboam fortified the city and made it strategically important (). The people of Teqoa who returned from Babylon were Calebites (), and they participated in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem (). The location of biblical Teqoa is well defined in Scripture. In the Jewish Encyclopedia (1901), Isidore Singer notes that "the Greek text of a passage (Joshua 15:59) lost in the Hebrew [i.e.