1When Rehoboam had come to Jerusalem, he assembled the house of Judah and Benjamin, one hundred eighty thousand chosen men who were warriors, to fight against Israel, to bring the kingdom again to Rehoboam. 2But Yahweh’s word came to Shemaiah the man of God, saying, 3“Speak to Rehoboam the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all Israel in Judah and Benjamin, saying, 4‘Yahweh says, “You shall not go up, nor fight against your brothers! Every man return to his house; for this thing is of me.”’” So they listened to Yahweh’s words, and returned from going against Jeroboam.
5Rehoboam lived in Jerusalem, and built cities for defense in Judah. 6He built Bethlehem, Etam, Tekoa, 7Beth Zur, Soco, Adullam, 8Gath, Mareshah, Ziph, 9Adoraim, Lachish, Azekah, 10Zorah, Aijalon, and Hebron, which are fortified cities in Judah and in Benjamin. 11He fortified the strongholds and put captains in them with stores of food, oil and wine. 12He put shields and spears in every city, and made them exceedingly strong. Judah and Benjamin belonged to him.
13The priests and the Levites who were in all Israel stood with him out of all their territory. 14For the Levites left their pasture lands and their possessions, and came to Judah and Jerusalem; for Jeroboam and his sons cast them off, that they should not execute the priest’s office to Yahweh. 15He himself appointed priests for the high places, for the male goat and calf idols which he had made. 16After them, out of all the tribes of Israel, those who set their hearts to seek Yahweh, the God of Israel, came to Jerusalem to sacrifice to Yahweh, the God of their fathers. 17So they strengthened the kingdom of Judah and made Rehoboam the son of Solomon strong for three years, for they walked three years in the way of David and Solomon.
18Rehoboam took a wife for himself, Mahalath the daughter of Jerimoth the son of David and of Abihail the daughter of Eliab the son of Jesse. 19She bore him sons: Jeush, Shemariah, and Zaham. 20After her, he took Maacah the granddaughter of Absalom; and she bore him Abijah, Attai, Ziza, and Shelomith. 21Rehoboam loved Maacah the granddaughter of Absalom above all his wives and his concubines; for he took eighteen wives and sixty concubines, and became the father of twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters. 22Rehoboam appointed Abijah the son of Maacah to be chief, the prince among his brothers, for he intended to make him king. 23He dealt wisely, and dispersed some of his sons throughout all the lands of Judah and Benjamin, to every fortified city. He gave them food in abundance; and he sought many wives for them.
1:1 Tekoa, five miles southeast of Bethlehem, has a commanding view of the region and was the home to: "Ira the son of Ikkesh" one of David's mighty men (2 Sam 23:26; 1 Chr 11:28; 27:9); the "wise woman of Tekoa" who tried to bring reconciliation between David and Absalom (2 Sam 14:2); certain Tekoites who repaired part of the walls of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 3:5); and most famously, Amos the eighth century prophet, herdsman (Amos 1:1) and dresser of sycamore-fig trees (Amos 7:14). Jerome says that Amos was buried in Tekoa as well (Commentary on Jeremiah, VI, 1). In the Greek version of Joshua 15:59, Tekoa is mentioned as part of Judah. Tekoa had been fortified by Rehoboam (2 Chr 11:6; Josephus, Antiquities, 8, ix, 1), and in the wilderness of Tekoa (2 Chr 20:20) Jehoshaphat took counsel there before advancing into the wilderness of Judea to confront the Ammonites and Moabites. Jeremiah warned Judah to flee south, away from the enemy advancing from the north (Jer 6:1), which played upon the sound tikehu Tekoa, "blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and raise a signal in Beth-haccherim." The name Tekoa may allude to taaqa' "to strike" – stakes that were pounded into the ground for shepherd’s tents. Jonathan Maccabeus and his brother Simon fled from the vengeance of the Greek Bacchides "into the wilderness of Tekoe and encamped by the water of the pool Asphar" (1 Macc 9:33), possibly a connection with Tekoa's father named Ashhur (1 Chr 2:24, 4:5). In the sixth century, a monastery called Laura Nova was founded at Tekoa by Saba, probably because Amos was believed to be buried there. Today the site called Khirbet Tequ'a is in ruins, having been built over in part by the modern town and is vandalized thoroughly.