Jeremiah 6:1

The Lord called the Benjamites, Jeremiah’s tribal kinsmen, to flee for safety from the coming invader from the north (cf. Jeremiah 4:5-6). Jerusalem stood on the southern border of Benjamin. Benjamin’s tribal border was the Hinnom Valley, which was also the southern boundary of Jerusalem.

Tekoa, the prophet Amos’ birthplace (Amos 1:1), was a Judean town about 10 miles south of Jerusalem, and Beth-haccerem (lit. house of the vineyard) stood three miles south of Jerusalem. These representative villages needed to warn their inhabitants, with trumpets and signal fires, to flee in view of the destroyer’s advance toward Jerusalem. Tekoa, of all the northern Judean cities, may have been selected for literary reasons. In Hebrew its name, teqoa’, is very similar to the word translated "blow the trumpet," tiq’u. Beth-haccerem may have been chosen for the meaning of its name, since Jeremiah often referred to Judah as "Yahweh’s vineyard."