Gad
VIEW:39 DATA:01-04-2020
a band; a troop
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary
God of fortune Canaan
Gods and Goddess Reference
GAD (fortunate).Gen_30:9 ff. (J [Note: Jahwist.] ), Gen_35:26 (P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] ); the first son of Zilpah, Leahs handmaid, by Jacob, and full brother of Asher (Happy). This like other of the tribal names, e.g. Dan, Asher, is very probably, despite this popular etymology, the name of a deity (cf. Isa_65:11, where AV [Note: Authorized Version.] renders troop but RV [Note: Revised Version.] Fortune). Another semi-etymology or, better, paronomasia (Gen_49:19) connects the name of the tribe with its warlike experiences and characteristics, taking note only of this feature of the tribal life:
gâdh gedhûdh yeghûdhennu
wehû yâghûdh âqçbh:
As for Gad, plunderers shall plunder him,
And he shall plunder in the rear (i.e. effect reprisals and plunder in return).
In the Blessing of Moses (Deu_33:20) Gad is compared to a lioness that teareth the arm and the crown of the head, and later (1Ch_12:8; 1Ch_12:14) the Gadites who joined David are described as leonine in appearance and incomparable in combat: Their faces are as the faces of lions, the smallest is equal to a hundred and the greatest to a thousand.
Upon the genetic relations of Gad and Asher the genealogy throws no light, for the fact that Gad and Asher, as it appears, were names of related divinities of Good Fortune would be sufficient ground for uniting them; but why they should have been brought together under the name of Zilpah is not to be conjectured with any certainty. Leah, unlike Rachel, who was barren until after her maid had brought forth to Jacob, had already borne four sons before Zilpah was called in to help her infirmity.
It appears that Gad, notwithstanding the genealogy, was a late tribe. In the Song of Deborah it is not even mentioned. Gilead there takes its place, but Mesha (9th cent.) knows the inhabitants of Gilead as the men of Gad.
The families of Gad are given by P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] in Gen_46:16 and Num_26:15 ff., 1Ch_5:11 ff. repeats them with variations. In the Sinai census P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] gives 46,650 men of war. By the time they had reached the Wilderness they had decreased to 40,500. Their position on the march through the desert is variously given in Numbers as 3rd, 6th, 11th.
Num_32:34-36 (P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] ) gives eight towns lying within the territory of Gad. The most southerly, Aroer, lay upon the Arnon; the most northerly, Jogbehah, not far from the Jabbok. Ataroth, another of these towns, is mentioned on the Moabite stone (l. 10), and the men of Gad are there said to have dwelt within it from of old. Within this region, and clustering about Heshbon, P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] gives six cities to the Reubenites, But in Jos_13:15 ff. Reuben has all to the south of Heshbon, and Gad all to the north of it. Owing to the divergent statements in the Hexateuch and the historical books, it is quite impossible to say what the northern boundary was. In any case it was not a stable one.
The reason assigned by the traditions for the settlement of Gad and Reuben in Gilead is that they were pastoral tribes, with large herds and flocks, and that they found the land pre-eminently adapted to their needs. They, therefore, obtained from Moses permission to settle on the east side of Jordan after they had first crossed the river and helped the other tribes in the work of conquest (see Num_32:1-42 and Deu_3:18-20).
After the conquest, in the time of the Judges, the people of Gilead were overrun by the Ammonites until Jephthah finally wrought their deliverance. In Davids conflicts with Saul, the Gadites and other eastern tribes came to his assistance. As the Mesha stone shows, they had probably at that time absorbed the Reubenites, who had been more exposed previously to Moabite attacks, which at this time fell more directly upon Gad. When the northern tribes revolted, Jeroboam must have found the Gadites among his staunchest supporters, for it was to Penuel in Gadite territory that he moved the capital from Shechem in Ephraim (1Ki_12:25).
In 734 the Gadites with their kinsmen of the East Jordan, Galilee and Naphtali, were carried captive by Tiglath-pileser iii. when Ahaz in his perplexity ventured upon the bold alternative of appealing to him for assistance against the powerful confederation of Syrians, Israelites, and Edomites who had leagued together to dethrone him (1Ki_15:29, 2Ch_28:16 ff.). It was clearly a case of Scylla and Charybdis for Ahaz. It was fatal for Gad. See also Tribes of Israel.
James A. Craig.
GAD.A god whose name appears in Gen_30:11 (by the help of Gad; so in Gen_30:13 by the help of Asherah); in the place-names Baal-gad, and Migdal-gad (Jos_11:17; Jos_12:7; Jos_13:5; Jos_15:37); and in the personal name Azgad (Ezr_2:12, Neh_7:17; Neh_10:15). In Isa_65:11 Gad (RV [Note: Revised Version.] Fortune) and Meni are named as two demons with whom the Israelites held communion (see Meni). Gad was probably an appellative before it became a personal name for a divinity, and is of Aramæan, Arabian, and Syrian provenance, but not Babylonian. He was the god who gave good fortune (Gr. Tyche), and presided over a person, house, or mountain.
W. F. Cobb.
GAD is entitled the seer (1Ch_29:29), Davids or the kings seer (1Ch_21:9, 2Ch_29:25, 2Sa_24:11), or the prophet (1Sa_22:5, 2Sa_24:11), He is represented as having announced the Divine condemnation on the royal census, and as having advised the erection of an altar on Araunahs threshing-floor (2Sa_24:11 ff. = 1Ch_21:9 ff.). The Chronicler again (1Ch_29:29) names him as having written an account of some part of his masters reign. A late conception associated him with the prophet Nathan (2Ch_29:25) in the task of planning some of the kings regulations with reference to the musical part of the service, while (1Sa_22:5) he is also stated to have acted as Davids counsellor in peril during the period when the two dwelt together in the hold.
GAD (Valley of).Mentioned only in 2Sa_24:5, and there the text should read in the midst of the valley towards Gad, the valley (wady) here being the Arnon (wh. see).
E. W. G. Masterman.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
Gad. (a troop).
1. Jacob's seventh son, the first-born of Zilpah, Leah's maid, and whole-brother to Asher. Gen_30:11-13; Gen_46:16; Gen_46:18. (B.C. 1753-1740).
2. "The seer", or "the king's seer", that is, David's seer 1Ch_29:29; 2Ch_29:25, was a "prophet" who appears to have joined David when in the old. 1Sa_22:5. (B.C. 1061). He reappears in connection with the punishment inflicted for the numbering of the people. 2Sa_24:11-19; 1Ch_21:9-19. He wrote a book of the Acts of David, 1Ch_29:29, and also assisted in the arrangements for the musical service of the "house of God." 2Ch_29:25.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863
was the name of the son of Jacob and Zilpah, Leah's servant, Gen_30:9-11. Leah, Jacob's wife, gave him also Zilpah, that by her she might have children. Zilpah brought a son, whom Leah called Gad, saying, A troop cometh. Gad had seven sons, Ziphion, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi, and Areli, Gen_46:16. Jacob, blessing Gad, said, A troop shall overcome him, but he shall overcome at the last,
Gen_49:19; and Moses, in his last song, mentions Gad as a lion which teareth the arm with the crown of the head, &c, Deu_33:20-21. The tribe of Gad came out of Egypt in number forty-five thousand six hundred and fifty. After the defeat of the kings Og and Sihon, Gad and Reuben desired to have their lot in the conquered country, and alleged their great number of cattle. Moses granted their request, on condition that they would accompany their brethren, and assist in the conquest of the land beyond Jordan. Gad had his inheritance between Reuben south, and Manasseh north, with the mountains of Gilead east, and Jordan west.
2. GAD, a prophet, David's friend, who followed him when persecuted by Saul. The Scripture calls him a prophet and David's seer, 2Sa_24:11. The first time we find him with this prince is when he fled into the land of Moab, 1Sa_22:5, to secure his father and mother in the first year of Saul's persecution. The Prophet Gad warned him to return into the land of Judah. After David had determined to number his people, the Lord sent to him the Prophet Gad, to offer him his choice of three scourges: seven years' famine, or three months' flight before his enemies, or three days' pestilence. Gad also directed David to erect an altar to the Lord, in the threshing floor of Ornan or Araunah, the Jebusite, 2Sa_24:13-19; and he wrote a history of David's life, cited in 1Ch_29:29.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.
Only nine and a half of Israels twelve tribes settled in the area commonly known as Canaan (i.e. the land west of the Jordan River). The other two and a half tribes settled in the area east of Jordan. In this eastern area half of the tribe of Manasseh was in the north, the tribe of Gad in the centre and the tribe of Reuben in the south (Num_32:1-5; Num_32:33; Jos_13:8-33). (For the settlement of the two and a half eastern tribes see REUBEN.)
Although the tribe was known as Gad (after the son of Jacob who fathered it; Gen_30:9-11), the area where it dwelt was commonly known as Gilead. Sometimes the names Gad and Gilead were used interchangeably (Jos_13:24-25; Jdg_5:17; Jdg_11:5; Jdg_12:4; 1Sa_13:7). (For the physical features of the region see GILEAD.)
Gad, like the other eastern tribes, was more open to attack than the western tribes, but the men of Gad were fierce fighters who drove back the invaders (Gen_49:19). They could not, however, withstand invasions for ever, and when Israel was later destroyed by Assyria, they were among the first Israelites to go into captivity (2Ki_10:32-33; 2Ki_15:29).
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.
Gad (a troop, or fortunate).
Gad, 1
A son of Jacob by his concubine Zilpah (Gen_30:10, sq.), and who became the progenitor of one of the twelve tribes. The sons of Gad are enumerated in Gen_46:15, sq., and Num_26:15, sq. At the time of the conquest of Canaan, the tribe of Gad counted 45,650 warriors (Num_1:24-25): the position of their camp in the desert is given Num_2:14, and the names of their chiefs, Num_1:14; Num_2:14; Num_7:42, sq.
As a reward for their having formed the vanguard in war of the army of the tribes collectively, they were allowed to appropriate to their exclusive use some pastoral districts beyond the Jordan (Num_32:17, sq.).
The inheritance of this tribe, called the landsof Gad (1Sa_13:7; Jer_49:1), was situated beyond the Jordan in Gilead, north of Reuben, and separated on the east from Ammon by the river Jabbok. According to 1Ch_5:11, the Gadites had extended their possessions on the east as far as Salcah, though the latter had been allotted by Moses to Manasseh (Deu_3:10; Deu_3:13): a proof how difficult it is to draw a strong line of demarcation between the possessions of pastoral tribes. The territory of Gad forms a part of the present Belka.
In Jos_13:25, the land of Gad is called 'half the land of the children of Ammon;' not because the latter were then in possession of it, but probably because the part west of the Jabbok had formerly borne that name (comp. Jdg_11:13).
The principal cities of Gad pass by the general appellation of the Cities of Gilead (Jos_13:25)
The Gadites were a warlike people, and were compelled to be continually armed and on the alert against the inroads of the surrounding Arabian hordes (comp. Gen_49:19; Deu_33:20; 1Ch_5:19, sq.).
Gad, 2
Gad, a prophet contemporary with David, and probably a pupil of Samuel, who early attached himself to the son of Jesse (1Sa_22:5). Instances of his prophetic intercourse with David occur in 2Sa_24:11, sq.; 1Ch_21:9, sq.; 29:25. Gad wrote a history of the reign of David, to which the author of the II Samuel seems to refer for further information respecting that reign (1Ch_29:29), B.C. 1062-1017.
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.
Gad
(Heb. id. גִּד, fortune, Gen_30:11, although another signification is alluded to in Gaen. 49:19 Sept. and N.T. Γάδ), the name of two men, and of the descendants of one of them; also of a heathen deity and of a plant. SEE BAAL-GAD; SEE MIGDAL-GAD.
1. (Josephus Γάδας.) Jacob's seventh son, the first-born of Zilpah, Leah's maid, and whole-brother to Asher (Gen_30:11-13; Gen_46:16; Gen_46:18), born autumn B.C. 1915. The following is a copious account of him and his posterity. SEE JACOB.
1. As to the name, there are several interpretations:
(a.) The passage in which the bestowal of the name of Gad is preserved like the others, an exclamation on his birth is more than usually obscure: "And Leah said, 'In fortune (be-gad, בְּגָד), and she called his name Gad" (Gen_30:11). Such is supposed to be the meaning of the old text of the passage (the Kethib); so it stood at the time of the Sept., which renders the key word by ἐν τύχῃ, in which it is followed by Jerome in the Vulg. Feliciter. In his Quaest. in Genesim, Jerome has infortuna. Josephus (Ant. 1:19, 8) gives it still a different turn-τυχαῖος= fortuitous. But in the Marginal emendations of the Masoretes (the Keri) the word is given בָּא גָד, "Gad has come." This construction is adopted by the ancient versions of Onkelos, Aquila (ἡλθεν ἡ ζῶσις), and Synemachus (῏ηλθεν Γάδ).
(b.) In the blessing of Jacob, however, we find the name played upon in a different manner: "Gad" is here taken as meaning a piratical band or troop (the term constantly used for which is gedud', גְּדוּד), and the, allusion the turns of which it is impossible adequately to convey in English would seem to be to the irregular life of predatory warfare which should be pursued by the tribe after their settlement on the borders of the Promised Land. "Gad, a plundering troop (gedud') shall plunder him (ye-gud-en'nu), but he will plunder (ya-gutd') [at the] heel" (Gen_49:19). Jerome (De Benedict. Jacobi) interprets this of the revenge taken by the warriors of the tribe on their return from the conquest of Western Palestine for the incursions of the desert tribes during their absence.
(c.) The force here lent to the name has been by some partially transferred to the narrative of Genesis 30, e.g. time Samaritan version, the Veneto- Greek, and our own A.V. (uniting this with the preceding) "a troop (of children) cometh." But it must not be overlooked that the word gedut by which it is here sought to interpret the gad of Gen_30:11 possessed its own special signification of turbulence and fierceness, which makes it hardly applicable to children in the sense of a number or crowd, the image suggested by the A.V. Exactly as the turns of Jacob's language apply to the characteristics of the tribe, it does not appear that there is any connection between his allusions and those in the exclamation of Leah. The key to the latter is probably lost. To suppose that Leah was invoking some ancient divinity, the god Fortune, who is conjectured to be once alluded to and once only in the latter part of the book of Isaiah, under the title of Gad (Isa_65:11; A.V. "that troop;" Gesenius, "dem Gluck"), is surely a poor explanation. See below, 3.
2. Of the childhood and life of the individual GAD nothing is preserved. At the time of the descent into Egypt seven sons are ascribed to him, remarkable from the fact that a majority of their meaemses have plural terminisations, as if those of families rather than persons (Gen_46:16). The list, with a slight variation, is again given on the occasion of the census in the wilderness of Sinai (Num_26:15-18). SEE AROD EZBON; SEE OZNI.
TRIBE OF GAD. The position of Gad during the march to the Promised Land was on the south side of the tabernacle (Num_2:14). The leader of the tribe at the time of the start from Sinai was Eliasaph, son of Renel or Des-el (Num_2:14; Num_10:20). Gad is regularly named in the various enumerations of the tribes through the wanderings-at the dispatching of the spies (Num_13:15), the numbering in the plains of Moab (Num_26:3; Num_26:15) but the only inference we can draw is an indication of a commencing alliance with the tribe which was subsequently to be his next neighbor. He has left the more closely-related tribe of Asher to take up his position next to Reuben. These two tribes also preserve a near equality in their numbers, not suffering from the fluctuations which were endured by the others. At the first census Gad had 45,650, and Reuben 46,500; at the last Gad had 40,500, and Reuben 43,330. This alliance was doubtless induced by the similarity of their pursuits. Of all the sons of Jacob, these two tribes alone returned to the land which their forefathers had left five hundred years before with their occupations unchanged. "The trade of thy slaves hath been about cattle froms our youth even till now "we are shepherds, baothe cee and our fathers" (Gen_46:34; Gen_47:4) such was the account which the patriarchs gave of themselves to Pharaoh. The civilization and the persecutions of Egypt had worked a change in the habits of most of the tribes but Reuben and Gad remained faithful to the pastoral pursuits of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and at the halt on the east of Jordan we find them coming forward to Moses with the representation that they "have cattle" "a great multitude of cattle,and the land where they now are is a "place for cattle." What should they do in the close precincts of the contatry west of Jordan with all their flocks and herds? Wherefore let this land, they pray, be given them for a possession, and let them not be brought over Jordan (Num_32:1-5). They did not, however, attempt to evade taking their proper share of the difficulties of subduing the land of Canaan, and after that task bad been effected, and the apportionment amongst the nine and a half tribes completed "at the doorway of the tabernacle of the congregation in Sheil before Jehovah," they were dismissed by Joshua "to their tents," to their "wives, their little ones, and their cattle," which they had left behind them in Gilead. To their tents they went to the dangers and delights of the free Bedouin life in which they had elected to remain, and in which a few partial glimpses excepted the later history allows them to remain hidden from view.
The country allotted to Gad appears, speaking roughly, to have lain chiefly about the center of the land east of Jordan. The south of that district from the Arnon (wady Mojeb), about half way down the Dead Sea, to Heshbon, nearly due east of Jerusalem was occupied by Reuben, and at or about Heshbon the possessions of Gad commenced. They embraced half Gilead, as the oldest record specially states (Deu_3:12), or half the land of the children of Ammon (Jos_13:25), probably the mountainous district which is intersected by the torrent Jabbok if the wady Zurka be the Jabbok including as its most northern town the ancient sanctuary of Mahanaim. On the east the furthest landmark given is "Aroer, that faces Rabbah," the present Amman (Jos_13:25). The Arabian desert thus appears to have been the eastern boundary. West was the Jordan (Jos_13:27). The northern boundary is somewhat more difficult to define. Gad possessed the whole Jordan valley as far as the Sea of Galilee (13:27), but among the mountains eastward the territory extended no farther north than the river Jabbok. The border seems to have run diagonally from that point across the mountains by Mahanaim to the southern extremity of the Sea of Galilee (Jos_12:1-6; Jos_13:26; Jos_13:30-31; Deu_3:12-13; see Porter's Damascus, 2:252). The territory thus consisted of two comparatively separate and independent parts, (1) the high land on the general level of the country east of Jordan, and (2) the sunk valley of the Jordan itself; the former diminishing at the Jabbok, the latter occupying the whole of the great valley on the east side of the river, and extending up to the very Sea of Cinnereth or Gennesaret itself.
Of the structure and character of the land which thus belonged to the tribe "the land of Gad and Gilead" we have only vague information. From the western part of Palestine its aspect is that of a wall of purple mountain, with a singularly horizontal outline; here and there the surface is seamed by the ravines, through which the torrents find their way to the Jordan, but this does not much affect the vertical walllike look of the range. But on a nearer approach in the Jordan valley, the horizontal outline becomes broken and when the summits are attained a new scene is said to burst on the view. "A wide table-land appears, tossed about in wild confusion of undulating downs, clothed with rich grass throughout; in the southern parts trees are thinly scattered here and there, aged trees covered with lichen, as if the relics of a primeval forest long since cleared away; the northern parts still abound in magnificent woods of sycamore, beech, terebinth, ilex, and enormous figtrees. These downs are broken by three deep defiles, through which the three rivers of the Yarmuk, the Jabbok, and the Arnon fall into the valley of the Jordan and the Dead Sea. On the east they melt away into the vast red plain, which by a gradual descent joins the level of the plain of the Hauran, and of the Assyrian desert" (Stanley, Palestine, page 320). It is a very picturesque country-not the "flat, open downs of smooth and even turf" of the country round Heshbon (Irby, page 142), the sheep-walks of Reuben and of the Moabites, but " most beautifully varied with hanging woods, mostly of the vallonia oak, laurestinus, cedar, arbutus, arbutus andrachne, etc. At times the country had all the appearance of a noble park" (ib. page 147), "graceful hills, rich vales, luxuriant herbage" (Porter, Handb. page 310). SEE GILEAD.
Such was the territory allotted to the Gadites; but there is no doubt that they soon extended themselves beyond these limits. The official records of the reign of Jotham of Judah (1Ch_5:11; 1Ch_5:16) show them to have been at that time established over the whole of Gilead, and in possession of Bashan as far as Salcah the modern Sulkhad, a town at the eastern extremity of the noble plain of the Hauramn and very far both to the north and the east of the border given them originally, while the Manassites were pushed still further northwards to Mount Hermon (1Ch_5:23). They soon became identified with Gilead, that name so memorable in the earliest history of the nation; and in many of the earlier records it supersedes the name of Gad, as we have already remarked it did that of Bashan. In the song of Deborah, " Gilead" is said to have "abode beyond Jordan" (Jdg_5:17). Jephthah appears to have been a Gadite, a native of Mizpeh (Jdg_11:34; compare 31, and Jos_13:26), and yet he is always designated "the Gileadite;" and so also with Barzillai of Mahanaim (2Sa_17:27; Ezr_2:61; comp. Jos_13:26). The following is a list of all the Biblical localities in this tribe, with their probable identifications:
The character of the tribe is throughout strongly marked fierce and warlike "strong men of might, men of war for the battle, that could handle shield and buckler, their faces the faces of lions; and like roes upon the mountains for swiftness." Such is the graphic description given of those eleven heroes of Gad "the least of them more than equal to a hundred, and the greatest to a thousand" who joined their fortunes to David at the time of his greatest discredit and embarrassment (1Ch_12:8), undeterred by the natural difficulties of "floods and field" which stood in their way. Surrounded as they were by Ammonites, Midianites, Hagarites, "Children of the East," and all the other countless tribes, animated by a common hostility to the strangers whose coming had dispossessed them of their fairest districts, the warlike propensities of the tribe must have had many opportunities of exercise. One of its greatest engagements is related in 1Ch_5:19-22. Here their opponents were the wandering Ishmaelitish tribes of Jetur, Nephish, and Nodab (comp. Gen_25:15), nomad people, possessed of an enormous wealth in camels, sheep, and asses, to this day the characteristic possessions of their Bedouin successors. This immense booty cames into the hands of the conquerors, who seem to have entered with it on the former mode of life of their victims: probably pushed their way further into the Eastern wilderness in the "steads" of these Hagarites. Another of these encounters is contained in the history of Jephthah, but this latter story develops elements of a different nature and a higher order than the mere fierceness necessary to repel the attacks of the plunderers of the desert. In the behavior of Jephthah throughout that affecting history there are traces of a spirit which we may almost call chivaleresque; the high tone taken with the elders of Gilead, the noble but fruitless expostulation with the king of Ammon before the attack, the hasty vow, the overwhelming grief, and yet the persistent devotion of purpose, survive sin all these there are marks of a great nobility of disposition, which must have been more or less characteristic of the Gadites in general. If to this we add the loyalty, the generosity, and the delicacy of Barzillai (2Sa_19:32-39), we obtain a very high idea of the tribe at whose head were such men as these. Nor must we, while enumerating the worthies of Gad, forget that in all probability Elijah the Tishebite, "who was of the inhabitants of Gilead," was one of them.
But, while exhibiting these high personal qualities, Gad appears to have been wanting in the powers necessary to enable him to take any active or leading part in the confederacy of the nation. The warriors, who rendered such assistance to David, might, when Ishbosheth set up his court at Mahanaim as king of Israel, have done much towards affirming his rights. Had Abner made choice of Shechem or Shiloh instead of Mahanaim the quick, explosive Ephraim instead of the unready Gad who can doubt that the troubles of David's reign would have been immensely increased, perhaps the establishment of the northern kingdoms antedated by nearly a century? David's presence at the same city during his flight from Absahelm produced no effect on the tribe, and they are not mentioned as having taken any part in the quarrels between Ephraim and Judah.
Cut off as Gad was by position and circumstances froan its brethren on the west of Jordan, it still retained some connection with them. We may infer that it was considered as belonging to the northern kingdom. "Know ye not," says Ahab in Samaria, "know ye not that Raroth in Gilead is ours, and we be still, and take it not out of the band of the king of Syria?" (l Kings 22:3). The territory of Gad was the battlefield as which the long and fierce struggles of Syria and Israel were fought out, and, as an agricultural pastoral country, it must have suffered severely in consequence (2 Kings 20:33).
Gad was carried into captivity by Tiglath Pileser (1Ch_5:26), and is the time of Jeremiah the cities of the tribe seem to have been inhabited by the Ammonites. "Hath Israel no sons? hath he no heir? why doth Malcham (i.e. Moloch) inherit Gad, and his people dwell in his cities?" (49:1). See Relamed, Palaest. page 162 sq.; Burckhardt, Trav. in Syria, page 345 sq.
2. (Josephus Γάδος, Anmt. 7:13, 4.) "The seer הִחֹזֶהor "the king's seer," i.e., David's such appears to have been his official title (1Ch_29:29; 2Ch_29:25; 2 Chronicles 2 Same. 24:11; 1Ch_21:9) was a "prophet" (נָבַיא), who appears to have joined David when in "the hold," and at whose advice he quitted it for the forest of Hareth (1Sa_22:5), B.C. 1061. Whether he remained with David during his wanderings is not to be ascertained: we do not again encounter him till late in the life of the king, when he reappears in connection with the punishment inflicted for the numbering of the people (2Sa_24:11-19; 1Ch_21:9-19), B.C. cir. 1016. But he was evidently attached to the royal establishment at Jerusalem, for he wrote a book ( SEE CHRONICLES, BOOK OF ) of the Acts of David (1Ch_29:29), and also assisted in settling the arrangements for the musical service of the "house of God," by which his name was handed down to times long after his own (2Ch_29:25). In the abruptness of his introduction Gad has been compared with Elijah (Jerome, Qu. Hebr. on 1Sa_22:5), with whom he may have been of the same tribe, if his name can be taken as denoting his parentage, but this is unsupported by any evidence. Nor is there any apparent ground for Ewald's suggestion (Gesch. 3:116) that he was of the school of Samuel. If this could be made out it would afford a natural reason for his joining David. SEE DAVID.
3. The name GAD (with the art. הִגָּד; Sept. δαιμόνιον v.r. δαίμιον, or, according to the reading of Jerome and of some MSS., τύχη) is mentioned in Isa_65:11 (A.V. "troop"). The word, by a combination with the Arabic, may be legitimately taken to denotefortune (see Pococke, Spec. Hist. Arab. page 140). So Gesenius, Hitzig, and Ewald have taken Gad in their respective versions of Isaiah, rendering the clause, "who spread a table to fortune." This view, which is the general one, makes fortune in this passage to be an object of idolatrous worship. There is great disagreement, however, as to the power of nature which this name was intended to denote, and, from the scanty data, there is little else than mere opinion on the subject. The majority, among whom are some of the chief rabbinical commentators (see Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. col. 1034), as well as Gesenius, Munter, and Ewald, consider Gad to be the form under which the planet Jupiter was worshipped as the greater star of good fortune (see especially Gesenius, Comm. uber Jesaia, ad loc.). Others, among whom is Vitringa, suppose Gad to have represented the Sun, while Huetius regards it as a representative of the moon, and Movers, the latest writer of any eminence on Syro-Arabian idolatry, takes it to have been the planet Venus (Die Phinicier, 1:650). SEE BEL. On the other hand, if Gad be derived from גָּדָדin the sense of to press, to crowd, it may mean a troop, a heap (to which sense there is an allusion in Gen_49:19); and Hoheisel, as cited in Rosenmuller's Scholia, ad loc., as well as Deyling, in his Observat. Miscell. page 673, have each attempted a mode by which the passage might be explained if Gad and Meni were taken in the sense of troop and number (see further Dav. Mill's diss. ad.loc. in his Diss. Selecte, pages 81- 132). SEE MENI.
Some have supposed that a trace of the Syrian worship of Gad is to be found in the exclamation of Leah, when Zilpah bare a son (Gen_30:11), בָּגָּד, ba-gad, or, as the Keri has it, בָּא גָר, "Gad, or good fortune cometh." The Targum of Pseudo-Jonathan and the Jerusalem Targum both give "a lucky planet cometh," but it is most probable that this is an interpretation which grew out of the astrological beliefs of a later time, and we can infer nothing from it with respect to the idolatry of the inhabitants of Padan Aram in the age of Jacob. That this later belief in a deity Fortune existed, there are many things to prove. Buxtorf (Lex. Talm. s.v.) says that anciently it was a custom for each man to have in his house a splendid couch, which was not used, but was set apart for "the prince of the house," that is, for the star or constellation Fortune, to render it more propitious. This couch was called the couch of Gada, or good-luck (Talm. Babl. Sanhed. f. 20 a; Nedarim, f. 56 a). Again, in Bereshith Rabba, § 65, the words יָקוּם אָבַי, in Gen_27:31, are explained as an invocation to Gada or Fortune. Rabbi Moses the Priest, quoted by Aben-Ezra (on Gen_30:11), says "that לגד (Isa_65:11) signifies the star of luck, which points to everything that is good, for thus is the language of Kedar (Arabic); but he says that בא גד (Gen_30:11) is not used in the same sense."
Illustrations of the ancient custom of placing a banqueting table in honor of idols will be found in the table spread for the sun among the Ethiopians (Herod. 3:17, 18), and in the feast made by the Babylonians for their god Bel, which is described in the apocryphal history of Bel and the Dragon (comp. also Herod. 1:181, etc.). The table in the temple of Belus is described by Diodorus Siculus (2:9) as being of beaten gold, 40 feet long, 15 wide, and weighing 500 talents. On it were placed two drinking-cups (καρχήσια) weighing 30 talents, two censers of 300 talents each, and three golden goblets, that of Jupiter or Bel weighing 1200 Babylonian talents. The couch and table of the god in the temple of Zeus Tryphilius at Patara, in the island of Panchea, are mentioned by Diodorus (5:46; comp. also Virgil, AEn. 2:763). In addition to the opinions which have been referred to above, may be quoted that of Stephen le Moyne (Var. Sacror. page 363), who says that Gad is the goat of Mendes, worshipped by the Egyptians as an embellem of the sun; and of Le Clerc (Comm. in Isa.) and Lakemacher (Obs. Php_4:18, etc.), who identify Gad with Hecate. Macrobius (Sat. 1:19) tells us that in the later Egyptian mythology Τύχη was worshipped as one of the four deities who presided over birth, and was represented by the moon. This will perhaps throw some light upon the rendering of the Sept. as given by Jerome. Traces of the worship of Gad remain in the proper names Baal Gad and Giddeneme (Plaut. Poen. 5:3), the latter of which Gesenius' (Mon. Phan. page 407) renders גר נעמה, "favoring fortune" (comp. Wirth, De Gad et Meni Judaeorum hodieanorum diis, Altorf, 1725). SEE BAAL.
4. For the plant gad, SEE CORIANDER. Gadara (τὰ Γάδαρα in Josephus, prob. from גֶּדֶר, a wall SEE GEDERAH; only in N.T. in the Gentile Γαδαρηνός), a strong city (Josephus, Ant. 13:13, 3), situated near the river Hieromax (Pliny, H.N. 5:16), east of the Sea of Galilee, over against Scythopolis anti Tiberias (Eusebius, Onomasticon, s.v.), and 16 Roman miles distant from each of those places (Itin. Anton. ed. Wess. pages 196, 198; Tab. Peut.), or 60 stadia from the latter (Joseph. Life, § 65). It stood on the top of a hill, at the foot of which, upon the banks of the Hieromax, three miles distant, were warm springs and baths called Amatha (Onom. s.v. AEtham and Gadara; Itin. Ant. Martyr.). Josephus calls it the capital of Peraea (War, 4:3), and Polybius says it was one of the most strongly fortified cities in the country (5:71, 3). A large district was attached to it, called by Josephus Gadaritis (Γαδαρῖτις, War, 3:10, 10); Strabo also informs us that the warm healing springs were "in the territory of Gadara" (ἐν τῇ Γαδαρίδι, Geog. 16 They were termed Thermae Heliae, and were reckoned inferior only to those of Baite (Easel). Onomast.). According to Epiphanius (adv. Heares. 1:131), a yearly festival was held at these baths (Reland, page 775). The caverns in the rocks are also mentioned by Epiphanius (1.c.) in terms which seem to show that they were in his day used for dwellings as well as for tombs. Gadara itself is not mentioned in the Bible, but it is evidently identical with the "country of the Gadarenes" (χώρα or περίχωρος τῶν Γαδαρηνῶν, Mar_5:1; Luk_8:26; Luk_8:37).
Gadara seems to have been founded and chiefly inhabited by Gentiles, for Josephus says of it, in conjunction with Gaza and Hippos, "they were Grecian cities" (Ant. 17:11, 4). The first historical notice of Gadara is its capture, along with Pella and other cities, by Antiochus the Great, in the year B.C. 218 (Joseph. Ant. 12:3, 3). About twenty years afterwards it was taken from the Syrians by Alex. Jannaus, after a siege of ten months (Ant. 13:13, 3; War, 1:4, 2). The Jews retained possession of it for some time; but the place having been destroyed during their civil wars, it was rebuilt by Pompey to gratify his freedman Demetrius, who was a Gadarene (War, 1:7, 7). When Gabinius, the proconsul of Syria, changed the government of Judaea by dividing the country into five districts, and placing each under the authority of a council, Gadara was made the capital of one of these districts (War, 1:8, 5). The territory of Gadara, with the adjoining one of Hippos, was added by Augustus to the kingdom of Herod the Great (Ant. 15:7, 3); from which, on the death of the latter, it was, sundered, and joined to the province of Syria (Joseph. War, 2:6, 3). According to the present text of the Jewish historian, Gadara was captured by Vespasian on the first outbreak of the war with the Jews, all its inhabitants massacred, and the town itself, with the surrounding villages, reduced to ashes (Joseph. War, 3:7, 1); but there is good reason to believe (see Robinson, Later Bib. Res. p. 87, note) that the place there referred to is GABARA SEE GABARA (q.v.). However that may have been, Gadara was at this time one of the most important cities cast of the Jordan (Joseph. War, 4:8, 3). Stephen of Byzantium (page 254) reckoned it a part of Coele-Syria, and Pliny (Hist. Nat. 5:16) a part of the Decapolis (comp. William of Tyre, 17:13). At a later period it was the seat of an episcopal see in Palaestina Secunda, whose bishops are named in the councils of Nice and Ephesus (Reland, Palaest. pages 176, 215, 223, 226). It is also mentioned in the Talmud (Reland, page 775; Ritter, Erdk. 17:318). For coins, see Eckhel (Doctr. Num. 3:348). It fell to ruins soon after the Mohammedan conquest, and has now been; deserted for centuries, with the exception of a few families of shepherds, who occasionally find a home in its rock-hewn tombs.
Most modern authorities (Raumler, in his Palastina, Burckhardt, Seetzen) find Gadara in the present village of Um-keis. Buckingham, however, identifies this with Gamala (Trav. in Palest. 2:252 sq.); though it may be added that his facts, if not his reasonings, lead to a conclusion in favor of the general opinion. On a partially isolated hill at the north-western extremity of the mountains of Gilead, about sixteen miles from Tiberias, lie the extensive and remarkable ruins of Um-Keis. Three miles northward, at the foot of the hill, is the deep bed of the Sheriat el Mandhfir, the ancient Hieromax; and here are still the warm springs of Amatha (see Irby and Mangles, page 298; Lindsay, 2:97, 98). On the west is the Jordan valley; and on the south is wady el 'Arab, running parallel to the Mandhur. Um- Keis occupies the crest of the ridge between the two latter wadys; and as this crest declines in elevation towards the east as well as the west, the situation is strong and commanding. The city formed nearly a square. The upper part of it stood on a level spot, and appears to have been walled all round, the activities of the hill being on all sides exceedingly steep. The eastern gate of entrance has its portals still remaining. The prevalent orders of architecture are the Ionic and the Corinthian. The whole space occupied by the ruins is about two miles in circumference, and there are traces of fortifications all round, though now almost completely prostrate. These ruins bear testimony to the splendor of ancient Gadara. On the northern side of the hill is a theatre, and not far from it are the remains of one of the city gates. At the latter a street commences the via recta of Gadara which ran through the city in a straight line, having a colonnade on each side. The columns are all prostrate. On the west side of the hill is another larger theatre in better preservation. The principal part of the city lay to the west of these two theatres, on a level piece of ground. Now not a house, not a column, not a wall remains standing; yet the old pavement of the main street is nearly perfect, and here and there the traces of the chariot- wheels are visible on the stones, reminding one of the thoroughfares of Pompeii. Buckingham speaks of several grottoes, which formed the necropolis of the city, on the eastern brow of the hill. The first two examined by him were plain chambers hewn down so as to present a perpendicular front. The third tomb had a stone door, as perfect as on the day of its being first hung. The last was an excavated chamber, seven feet in height, twelve paces long, and ten broad; within it was a smaller room. Other tombs were discovered by Buckingham as he ascended the hill. He entered one in which were ten sepulchres, ranged along the inner wall of the chamber in a line, being pierced inward for their greatest length, and divided by a thin partition left in the rock, in each of which was cut a small niche for a lamp. Still more tombs were found, some containing sarcophagi, some without them; all, however, displaying more or less of architectural ornament. One of the ancient tombs was, when our traveler saw it, used as a carpenter's shop, the occupier of it being employed in constructing a rude plow. A perfect sarcophagus remained within, which was used by the family as a provision-chest. See Burckhardt, Syria. Page 270 sq.; Porter, in Journal of Sac. Lit. 6:281 sq.; Hackett, Illustr. of Script. page 190; Traill's Josephus, 1:145.
Gadara derives its greatest interest from having been the scene of our Lord's miracle in healing the daemoniacs (Mat_8:28-34; Mar_5:1-21; Luk_8:26-40). "They ware no clothes, neither abode in any house, but in the tombs." Christ came across the lake from Capernaum, and landed at the southeastern corner, where the steep, lofty bank of the eastern plateau breaks down into the plain of the Jordan. The daemoniacs met him a short distance from the shore; on the side of the adjoining declivity the "great herd of swine" were feeding; when the daemons went among them the whole herd rushed down that "steep place" into the lake and perished; the keepers ran up to the city and told the news, and the excited population came down in haste, and "besought Jesus that he would depart out of their coasts." The whole circumstances of the narrative are thus strikingly illustrated by the features of the country. Another thing is worthy of notice. The most interesting remains of Gadara are its tombs, which dot the cliffs for a considerable distance round the city, chiefly on the north-east declivity, but many beautifully-sculptured sarcophagi are scattered over the surrounding heights. They are excavated in the limestone rock, and consist of chambers of various dimensions, some more than 20 feet square, with recesses in the sides for bodies. The doors are slabs of stone, a few being ornamented with panels; some of them still remain in their places (Porter, Damascus, 2:54). The present inhabitants of Um-Keis are all troglodytes, "dwelling in tombs," like the poor maniacs of old, and occasionally they are almost as dangerous to the unprotected traveler. In the above account, in the Gospel of Matthew (8:28), we have the word Gergesenes (Γεργεσηνῶν, instead of Γαδαρηνῶν), which seems to be the same as the Hebrew גּרְגָּשִׁי(Sept. Γεργεσαῖος) in Gen_15:21, and Deu_7:1, the name of an old Canaanitish tribe SEE GIRGASHITES, which Jerome (in Comm. ad Genesis 15) locates on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias. Origen also says (Opp. 4:140) that a city called Gergesa anciently stood on the eastern side of the lake. Even were this true, still the other Gospels would be strictly accurate. Gadara was a large city, and its district would include Gergesa. But it must be remembered that the most ancient MSS. give the word Γεραηνῶν, while others have Γαδαρηνῶν the former reading is adopted by Griesbach and Lachmann. while Scholz prefers the latter; and either one or other of these seems preferable to Γεργεσηνῶν. SEE GERASA.
Gadarene (Γαδαρηνός), an inhabitant of GADARA SEE GADARA (q.v.), occurring only in the account of the daemoniacs cured by Christ (Mar_5:1; Luk_8:26; Luk_8:37), and perhaps to be read in the third Evangelist (Mat_8:28) instead of GERGESENE SEE GERGESENE (q.v.).
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary
God of fortune Canaan
Gods and Goddess Reference
GAD (fortunate).Gen_30:9 ff. (J [Note: Jahwist.] ), Gen_35:26 (P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] ); the first son of Zilpah, Leahs handmaid, by Jacob, and full brother of Asher (Happy). This like other of the tribal names, e.g. Dan, Asher, is very probably, despite this popular etymology, the name of a deity (cf. Isa_65:11, where AV [Note: Authorized Version.] renders troop but RV [Note: Revised Version.] Fortune). Another semi-etymology or, better, paronomasia (Gen_49:19) connects the name of the tribe with its warlike experiences and characteristics, taking note only of this feature of the tribal life:
gâdh gedhûdh yeghûdhennu
wehû yâghûdh âqçbh:
As for Gad, plunderers shall plunder him,
And he shall plunder in the rear (i.e. effect reprisals and plunder in return).
In the Blessing of Moses (Deu_33:20) Gad is compared to a lioness that teareth the arm and the crown of the head, and later (1Ch_12:8; 1Ch_12:14) the Gadites who joined David are described as leonine in appearance and incomparable in combat: Their faces are as the faces of lions, the smallest is equal to a hundred and the greatest to a thousand.
Upon the genetic relations of Gad and Asher the genealogy throws no light, for the fact that Gad and Asher, as it appears, were names of related divinities of Good Fortune would be sufficient ground for uniting them; but why they should have been brought together under the name of Zilpah is not to be conjectured with any certainty. Leah, unlike Rachel, who was barren until after her maid had brought forth to Jacob, had already borne four sons before Zilpah was called in to help her infirmity.
It appears that Gad, notwithstanding the genealogy, was a late tribe. In the Song of Deborah it is not even mentioned. Gilead there takes its place, but Mesha (9th cent.) knows the inhabitants of Gilead as the men of Gad.
The families of Gad are given by P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] in Gen_46:16 and Num_26:15 ff., 1Ch_5:11 ff. repeats them with variations. In the Sinai census P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] gives 46,650 men of war. By the time they had reached the Wilderness they had decreased to 40,500. Their position on the march through the desert is variously given in Numbers as 3rd, 6th, 11th.
Num_32:34-36 (P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] ) gives eight towns lying within the territory of Gad. The most southerly, Aroer, lay upon the Arnon; the most northerly, Jogbehah, not far from the Jabbok. Ataroth, another of these towns, is mentioned on the Moabite stone (l. 10), and the men of Gad are there said to have dwelt within it from of old. Within this region, and clustering about Heshbon, P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] gives six cities to the Reubenites, But in Jos_13:15 ff. Reuben has all to the south of Heshbon, and Gad all to the north of it. Owing to the divergent statements in the Hexateuch and the historical books, it is quite impossible to say what the northern boundary was. In any case it was not a stable one.
The reason assigned by the traditions for the settlement of Gad and Reuben in Gilead is that they were pastoral tribes, with large herds and flocks, and that they found the land pre-eminently adapted to their needs. They, therefore, obtained from Moses permission to settle on the east side of Jordan after they had first crossed the river and helped the other tribes in the work of conquest (see Num_32:1-42 and Deu_3:18-20).
After the conquest, in the time of the Judges, the people of Gilead were overrun by the Ammonites until Jephthah finally wrought their deliverance. In Davids conflicts with Saul, the Gadites and other eastern tribes came to his assistance. As the Mesha stone shows, they had probably at that time absorbed the Reubenites, who had been more exposed previously to Moabite attacks, which at this time fell more directly upon Gad. When the northern tribes revolted, Jeroboam must have found the Gadites among his staunchest supporters, for it was to Penuel in Gadite territory that he moved the capital from Shechem in Ephraim (1Ki_12:25).
In 734 the Gadites with their kinsmen of the East Jordan, Galilee and Naphtali, were carried captive by Tiglath-pileser iii. when Ahaz in his perplexity ventured upon the bold alternative of appealing to him for assistance against the powerful confederation of Syrians, Israelites, and Edomites who had leagued together to dethrone him (1Ki_15:29, 2Ch_28:16 ff.). It was clearly a case of Scylla and Charybdis for Ahaz. It was fatal for Gad. See also Tribes of Israel.
James A. Craig.
GAD.A god whose name appears in Gen_30:11 (by the help of Gad; so in Gen_30:13 by the help of Asherah); in the place-names Baal-gad, and Migdal-gad (Jos_11:17; Jos_12:7; Jos_13:5; Jos_15:37); and in the personal name Azgad (Ezr_2:12, Neh_7:17; Neh_10:15). In Isa_65:11 Gad (RV [Note: Revised Version.] Fortune) and Meni are named as two demons with whom the Israelites held communion (see Meni). Gad was probably an appellative before it became a personal name for a divinity, and is of Aramæan, Arabian, and Syrian provenance, but not Babylonian. He was the god who gave good fortune (Gr. Tyche), and presided over a person, house, or mountain.
W. F. Cobb.
GAD is entitled the seer (1Ch_29:29), Davids or the kings seer (1Ch_21:9, 2Ch_29:25, 2Sa_24:11), or the prophet (1Sa_22:5, 2Sa_24:11), He is represented as having announced the Divine condemnation on the royal census, and as having advised the erection of an altar on Araunahs threshing-floor (2Sa_24:11 ff. = 1Ch_21:9 ff.). The Chronicler again (1Ch_29:29) names him as having written an account of some part of his masters reign. A late conception associated him with the prophet Nathan (2Ch_29:25) in the task of planning some of the kings regulations with reference to the musical part of the service, while (1Sa_22:5) he is also stated to have acted as Davids counsellor in peril during the period when the two dwelt together in the hold.
GAD (Valley of).Mentioned only in 2Sa_24:5, and there the text should read in the midst of the valley towards Gad, the valley (wady) here being the Arnon (wh. see).
E. W. G. Masterman.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
Gad. (a troop).
1. Jacob's seventh son, the first-born of Zilpah, Leah's maid, and whole-brother to Asher. Gen_30:11-13; Gen_46:16; Gen_46:18. (B.C. 1753-1740).
2. "The seer", or "the king's seer", that is, David's seer 1Ch_29:29; 2Ch_29:25, was a "prophet" who appears to have joined David when in the old. 1Sa_22:5. (B.C. 1061). He reappears in connection with the punishment inflicted for the numbering of the people. 2Sa_24:11-19; 1Ch_21:9-19. He wrote a book of the Acts of David, 1Ch_29:29, and also assisted in the arrangements for the musical service of the "house of God." 2Ch_29:25.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863
was the name of the son of Jacob and Zilpah, Leah's servant, Gen_30:9-11. Leah, Jacob's wife, gave him also Zilpah, that by her she might have children. Zilpah brought a son, whom Leah called Gad, saying, A troop cometh. Gad had seven sons, Ziphion, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi, and Areli, Gen_46:16. Jacob, blessing Gad, said, A troop shall overcome him, but he shall overcome at the last,
Gen_49:19; and Moses, in his last song, mentions Gad as a lion which teareth the arm with the crown of the head, &c, Deu_33:20-21. The tribe of Gad came out of Egypt in number forty-five thousand six hundred and fifty. After the defeat of the kings Og and Sihon, Gad and Reuben desired to have their lot in the conquered country, and alleged their great number of cattle. Moses granted their request, on condition that they would accompany their brethren, and assist in the conquest of the land beyond Jordan. Gad had his inheritance between Reuben south, and Manasseh north, with the mountains of Gilead east, and Jordan west.
2. GAD, a prophet, David's friend, who followed him when persecuted by Saul. The Scripture calls him a prophet and David's seer, 2Sa_24:11. The first time we find him with this prince is when he fled into the land of Moab, 1Sa_22:5, to secure his father and mother in the first year of Saul's persecution. The Prophet Gad warned him to return into the land of Judah. After David had determined to number his people, the Lord sent to him the Prophet Gad, to offer him his choice of three scourges: seven years' famine, or three months' flight before his enemies, or three days' pestilence. Gad also directed David to erect an altar to the Lord, in the threshing floor of Ornan or Araunah, the Jebusite, 2Sa_24:13-19; and he wrote a history of David's life, cited in 1Ch_29:29.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.
Only nine and a half of Israels twelve tribes settled in the area commonly known as Canaan (i.e. the land west of the Jordan River). The other two and a half tribes settled in the area east of Jordan. In this eastern area half of the tribe of Manasseh was in the north, the tribe of Gad in the centre and the tribe of Reuben in the south (Num_32:1-5; Num_32:33; Jos_13:8-33). (For the settlement of the two and a half eastern tribes see REUBEN.)
Although the tribe was known as Gad (after the son of Jacob who fathered it; Gen_30:9-11), the area where it dwelt was commonly known as Gilead. Sometimes the names Gad and Gilead were used interchangeably (Jos_13:24-25; Jdg_5:17; Jdg_11:5; Jdg_12:4; 1Sa_13:7). (For the physical features of the region see GILEAD.)
Gad, like the other eastern tribes, was more open to attack than the western tribes, but the men of Gad were fierce fighters who drove back the invaders (Gen_49:19). They could not, however, withstand invasions for ever, and when Israel was later destroyed by Assyria, they were among the first Israelites to go into captivity (2Ki_10:32-33; 2Ki_15:29).
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary by Don Fleming
PRINTER 1990.
Gad (a troop, or fortunate).
Gad, 1
A son of Jacob by his concubine Zilpah (Gen_30:10, sq.), and who became the progenitor of one of the twelve tribes. The sons of Gad are enumerated in Gen_46:15, sq., and Num_26:15, sq. At the time of the conquest of Canaan, the tribe of Gad counted 45,650 warriors (Num_1:24-25): the position of their camp in the desert is given Num_2:14, and the names of their chiefs, Num_1:14; Num_2:14; Num_7:42, sq.
As a reward for their having formed the vanguard in war of the army of the tribes collectively, they were allowed to appropriate to their exclusive use some pastoral districts beyond the Jordan (Num_32:17, sq.).
The inheritance of this tribe, called the landsof Gad (1Sa_13:7; Jer_49:1), was situated beyond the Jordan in Gilead, north of Reuben, and separated on the east from Ammon by the river Jabbok. According to 1Ch_5:11, the Gadites had extended their possessions on the east as far as Salcah, though the latter had been allotted by Moses to Manasseh (Deu_3:10; Deu_3:13): a proof how difficult it is to draw a strong line of demarcation between the possessions of pastoral tribes. The territory of Gad forms a part of the present Belka.
In Jos_13:25, the land of Gad is called 'half the land of the children of Ammon;' not because the latter were then in possession of it, but probably because the part west of the Jabbok had formerly borne that name (comp. Jdg_11:13).
The principal cities of Gad pass by the general appellation of the Cities of Gilead (Jos_13:25)
The Gadites were a warlike people, and were compelled to be continually armed and on the alert against the inroads of the surrounding Arabian hordes (comp. Gen_49:19; Deu_33:20; 1Ch_5:19, sq.).
Gad, 2
Gad, a prophet contemporary with David, and probably a pupil of Samuel, who early attached himself to the son of Jesse (1Sa_22:5). Instances of his prophetic intercourse with David occur in 2Sa_24:11, sq.; 1Ch_21:9, sq.; 29:25. Gad wrote a history of the reign of David, to which the author of the II Samuel seems to refer for further information respecting that reign (1Ch_29:29), B.C. 1062-1017.
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.
Gad
(Heb. id. גִּד, fortune, Gen_30:11, although another signification is alluded to in Gaen. 49:19 Sept. and N.T. Γάδ), the name of two men, and of the descendants of one of them; also of a heathen deity and of a plant. SEE BAAL-GAD; SEE MIGDAL-GAD.
1. (Josephus Γάδας.) Jacob's seventh son, the first-born of Zilpah, Leah's maid, and whole-brother to Asher (Gen_30:11-13; Gen_46:16; Gen_46:18), born autumn B.C. 1915. The following is a copious account of him and his posterity. SEE JACOB.
1. As to the name, there are several interpretations:
(a.) The passage in which the bestowal of the name of Gad is preserved like the others, an exclamation on his birth is more than usually obscure: "And Leah said, 'In fortune (be-gad, בְּגָד), and she called his name Gad" (Gen_30:11). Such is supposed to be the meaning of the old text of the passage (the Kethib); so it stood at the time of the Sept., which renders the key word by ἐν τύχῃ, in which it is followed by Jerome in the Vulg. Feliciter. In his Quaest. in Genesim, Jerome has infortuna. Josephus (Ant. 1:19, 8) gives it still a different turn-τυχαῖος= fortuitous. But in the Marginal emendations of the Masoretes (the Keri) the word is given בָּא גָד, "Gad has come." This construction is adopted by the ancient versions of Onkelos, Aquila (ἡλθεν ἡ ζῶσις), and Synemachus (῏ηλθεν Γάδ).
(b.) In the blessing of Jacob, however, we find the name played upon in a different manner: "Gad" is here taken as meaning a piratical band or troop (the term constantly used for which is gedud', גְּדוּד), and the, allusion the turns of which it is impossible adequately to convey in English would seem to be to the irregular life of predatory warfare which should be pursued by the tribe after their settlement on the borders of the Promised Land. "Gad, a plundering troop (gedud') shall plunder him (ye-gud-en'nu), but he will plunder (ya-gutd') [at the] heel" (Gen_49:19). Jerome (De Benedict. Jacobi) interprets this of the revenge taken by the warriors of the tribe on their return from the conquest of Western Palestine for the incursions of the desert tribes during their absence.
(c.) The force here lent to the name has been by some partially transferred to the narrative of Genesis 30, e.g. time Samaritan version, the Veneto- Greek, and our own A.V. (uniting this with the preceding) "a troop (of children) cometh." But it must not be overlooked that the word gedut by which it is here sought to interpret the gad of Gen_30:11 possessed its own special signification of turbulence and fierceness, which makes it hardly applicable to children in the sense of a number or crowd, the image suggested by the A.V. Exactly as the turns of Jacob's language apply to the characteristics of the tribe, it does not appear that there is any connection between his allusions and those in the exclamation of Leah. The key to the latter is probably lost. To suppose that Leah was invoking some ancient divinity, the god Fortune, who is conjectured to be once alluded to and once only in the latter part of the book of Isaiah, under the title of Gad (Isa_65:11; A.V. "that troop;" Gesenius, "dem Gluck"), is surely a poor explanation. See below, 3.
2. Of the childhood and life of the individual GAD nothing is preserved. At the time of the descent into Egypt seven sons are ascribed to him, remarkable from the fact that a majority of their meaemses have plural terminisations, as if those of families rather than persons (Gen_46:16). The list, with a slight variation, is again given on the occasion of the census in the wilderness of Sinai (Num_26:15-18). SEE AROD EZBON; SEE OZNI.
TRIBE OF GAD. The position of Gad during the march to the Promised Land was on the south side of the tabernacle (Num_2:14). The leader of the tribe at the time of the start from Sinai was Eliasaph, son of Renel or Des-el (Num_2:14; Num_10:20). Gad is regularly named in the various enumerations of the tribes through the wanderings-at the dispatching of the spies (Num_13:15), the numbering in the plains of Moab (Num_26:3; Num_26:15) but the only inference we can draw is an indication of a commencing alliance with the tribe which was subsequently to be his next neighbor. He has left the more closely-related tribe of Asher to take up his position next to Reuben. These two tribes also preserve a near equality in their numbers, not suffering from the fluctuations which were endured by the others. At the first census Gad had 45,650, and Reuben 46,500; at the last Gad had 40,500, and Reuben 43,330. This alliance was doubtless induced by the similarity of their pursuits. Of all the sons of Jacob, these two tribes alone returned to the land which their forefathers had left five hundred years before with their occupations unchanged. "The trade of thy slaves hath been about cattle froms our youth even till now "we are shepherds, baothe cee and our fathers" (Gen_46:34; Gen_47:4) such was the account which the patriarchs gave of themselves to Pharaoh. The civilization and the persecutions of Egypt had worked a change in the habits of most of the tribes but Reuben and Gad remained faithful to the pastoral pursuits of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and at the halt on the east of Jordan we find them coming forward to Moses with the representation that they "have cattle" "a great multitude of cattle,and the land where they now are is a "place for cattle." What should they do in the close precincts of the contatry west of Jordan with all their flocks and herds? Wherefore let this land, they pray, be given them for a possession, and let them not be brought over Jordan (Num_32:1-5). They did not, however, attempt to evade taking their proper share of the difficulties of subduing the land of Canaan, and after that task bad been effected, and the apportionment amongst the nine and a half tribes completed "at the doorway of the tabernacle of the congregation in Sheil before Jehovah," they were dismissed by Joshua "to their tents," to their "wives, their little ones, and their cattle," which they had left behind them in Gilead. To their tents they went to the dangers and delights of the free Bedouin life in which they had elected to remain, and in which a few partial glimpses excepted the later history allows them to remain hidden from view.
The country allotted to Gad appears, speaking roughly, to have lain chiefly about the center of the land east of Jordan. The south of that district from the Arnon (wady Mojeb), about half way down the Dead Sea, to Heshbon, nearly due east of Jerusalem was occupied by Reuben, and at or about Heshbon the possessions of Gad commenced. They embraced half Gilead, as the oldest record specially states (Deu_3:12), or half the land of the children of Ammon (Jos_13:25), probably the mountainous district which is intersected by the torrent Jabbok if the wady Zurka be the Jabbok including as its most northern town the ancient sanctuary of Mahanaim. On the east the furthest landmark given is "Aroer, that faces Rabbah," the present Amman (Jos_13:25). The Arabian desert thus appears to have been the eastern boundary. West was the Jordan (Jos_13:27). The northern boundary is somewhat more difficult to define. Gad possessed the whole Jordan valley as far as the Sea of Galilee (13:27), but among the mountains eastward the territory extended no farther north than the river Jabbok. The border seems to have run diagonally from that point across the mountains by Mahanaim to the southern extremity of the Sea of Galilee (Jos_12:1-6; Jos_13:26; Jos_13:30-31; Deu_3:12-13; see Porter's Damascus, 2:252). The territory thus consisted of two comparatively separate and independent parts, (1) the high land on the general level of the country east of Jordan, and (2) the sunk valley of the Jordan itself; the former diminishing at the Jabbok, the latter occupying the whole of the great valley on the east side of the river, and extending up to the very Sea of Cinnereth or Gennesaret itself.
Of the structure and character of the land which thus belonged to the tribe "the land of Gad and Gilead" we have only vague information. From the western part of Palestine its aspect is that of a wall of purple mountain, with a singularly horizontal outline; here and there the surface is seamed by the ravines, through which the torrents find their way to the Jordan, but this does not much affect the vertical walllike look of the range. But on a nearer approach in the Jordan valley, the horizontal outline becomes broken and when the summits are attained a new scene is said to burst on the view. "A wide table-land appears, tossed about in wild confusion of undulating downs, clothed with rich grass throughout; in the southern parts trees are thinly scattered here and there, aged trees covered with lichen, as if the relics of a primeval forest long since cleared away; the northern parts still abound in magnificent woods of sycamore, beech, terebinth, ilex, and enormous figtrees. These downs are broken by three deep defiles, through which the three rivers of the Yarmuk, the Jabbok, and the Arnon fall into the valley of the Jordan and the Dead Sea. On the east they melt away into the vast red plain, which by a gradual descent joins the level of the plain of the Hauran, and of the Assyrian desert" (Stanley, Palestine, page 320). It is a very picturesque country-not the "flat, open downs of smooth and even turf" of the country round Heshbon (Irby, page 142), the sheep-walks of Reuben and of the Moabites, but " most beautifully varied with hanging woods, mostly of the vallonia oak, laurestinus, cedar, arbutus, arbutus andrachne, etc. At times the country had all the appearance of a noble park" (ib. page 147), "graceful hills, rich vales, luxuriant herbage" (Porter, Handb. page 310). SEE GILEAD.
Such was the territory allotted to the Gadites; but there is no doubt that they soon extended themselves beyond these limits. The official records of the reign of Jotham of Judah (1Ch_5:11; 1Ch_5:16) show them to have been at that time established over the whole of Gilead, and in possession of Bashan as far as Salcah the modern Sulkhad, a town at the eastern extremity of the noble plain of the Hauramn and very far both to the north and the east of the border given them originally, while the Manassites were pushed still further northwards to Mount Hermon (1Ch_5:23). They soon became identified with Gilead, that name so memorable in the earliest history of the nation; and in many of the earlier records it supersedes the name of Gad, as we have already remarked it did that of Bashan. In the song of Deborah, " Gilead" is said to have "abode beyond Jordan" (Jdg_5:17). Jephthah appears to have been a Gadite, a native of Mizpeh (Jdg_11:34; compare 31, and Jos_13:26), and yet he is always designated "the Gileadite;" and so also with Barzillai of Mahanaim (2Sa_17:27; Ezr_2:61; comp. Jos_13:26). The following is a list of all the Biblical localities in this tribe, with their probable identifications:
The character of the tribe is throughout strongly marked fierce and warlike "strong men of might, men of war for the battle, that could handle shield and buckler, their faces the faces of lions; and like roes upon the mountains for swiftness." Such is the graphic description given of those eleven heroes of Gad "the least of them more than equal to a hundred, and the greatest to a thousand" who joined their fortunes to David at the time of his greatest discredit and embarrassment (1Ch_12:8), undeterred by the natural difficulties of "floods and field" which stood in their way. Surrounded as they were by Ammonites, Midianites, Hagarites, "Children of the East," and all the other countless tribes, animated by a common hostility to the strangers whose coming had dispossessed them of their fairest districts, the warlike propensities of the tribe must have had many opportunities of exercise. One of its greatest engagements is related in 1Ch_5:19-22. Here their opponents were the wandering Ishmaelitish tribes of Jetur, Nephish, and Nodab (comp. Gen_25:15), nomad people, possessed of an enormous wealth in camels, sheep, and asses, to this day the characteristic possessions of their Bedouin successors. This immense booty cames into the hands of the conquerors, who seem to have entered with it on the former mode of life of their victims: probably pushed their way further into the Eastern wilderness in the "steads" of these Hagarites. Another of these encounters is contained in the history of Jephthah, but this latter story develops elements of a different nature and a higher order than the mere fierceness necessary to repel the attacks of the plunderers of the desert. In the behavior of Jephthah throughout that affecting history there are traces of a spirit which we may almost call chivaleresque; the high tone taken with the elders of Gilead, the noble but fruitless expostulation with the king of Ammon before the attack, the hasty vow, the overwhelming grief, and yet the persistent devotion of purpose, survive sin all these there are marks of a great nobility of disposition, which must have been more or less characteristic of the Gadites in general. If to this we add the loyalty, the generosity, and the delicacy of Barzillai (2Sa_19:32-39), we obtain a very high idea of the tribe at whose head were such men as these. Nor must we, while enumerating the worthies of Gad, forget that in all probability Elijah the Tishebite, "who was of the inhabitants of Gilead," was one of them.
But, while exhibiting these high personal qualities, Gad appears to have been wanting in the powers necessary to enable him to take any active or leading part in the confederacy of the nation. The warriors, who rendered such assistance to David, might, when Ishbosheth set up his court at Mahanaim as king of Israel, have done much towards affirming his rights. Had Abner made choice of Shechem or Shiloh instead of Mahanaim the quick, explosive Ephraim instead of the unready Gad who can doubt that the troubles of David's reign would have been immensely increased, perhaps the establishment of the northern kingdoms antedated by nearly a century? David's presence at the same city during his flight from Absahelm produced no effect on the tribe, and they are not mentioned as having taken any part in the quarrels between Ephraim and Judah.
Cut off as Gad was by position and circumstances froan its brethren on the west of Jordan, it still retained some connection with them. We may infer that it was considered as belonging to the northern kingdom. "Know ye not," says Ahab in Samaria, "know ye not that Raroth in Gilead is ours, and we be still, and take it not out of the band of the king of Syria?" (l Kings 22:3). The territory of Gad was the battlefield as which the long and fierce struggles of Syria and Israel were fought out, and, as an agricultural pastoral country, it must have suffered severely in consequence (2 Kings 20:33).
Gad was carried into captivity by Tiglath Pileser (1Ch_5:26), and is the time of Jeremiah the cities of the tribe seem to have been inhabited by the Ammonites. "Hath Israel no sons? hath he no heir? why doth Malcham (i.e. Moloch) inherit Gad, and his people dwell in his cities?" (49:1). See Relamed, Palaest. page 162 sq.; Burckhardt, Trav. in Syria, page 345 sq.
2. (Josephus Γάδος, Anmt. 7:13, 4.) "The seer הִחֹזֶהor "the king's seer," i.e., David's such appears to have been his official title (1Ch_29:29; 2Ch_29:25; 2 Chronicles 2 Same. 24:11; 1Ch_21:9) was a "prophet" (נָבַיא), who appears to have joined David when in "the hold," and at whose advice he quitted it for the forest of Hareth (1Sa_22:5), B.C. 1061. Whether he remained with David during his wanderings is not to be ascertained: we do not again encounter him till late in the life of the king, when he reappears in connection with the punishment inflicted for the numbering of the people (2Sa_24:11-19; 1Ch_21:9-19), B.C. cir. 1016. But he was evidently attached to the royal establishment at Jerusalem, for he wrote a book ( SEE CHRONICLES, BOOK OF ) of the Acts of David (1Ch_29:29), and also assisted in settling the arrangements for the musical service of the "house of God," by which his name was handed down to times long after his own (2Ch_29:25). In the abruptness of his introduction Gad has been compared with Elijah (Jerome, Qu. Hebr. on 1Sa_22:5), with whom he may have been of the same tribe, if his name can be taken as denoting his parentage, but this is unsupported by any evidence. Nor is there any apparent ground for Ewald's suggestion (Gesch. 3:116) that he was of the school of Samuel. If this could be made out it would afford a natural reason for his joining David. SEE DAVID.
3. The name GAD (with the art. הִגָּד; Sept. δαιμόνιον v.r. δαίμιον, or, according to the reading of Jerome and of some MSS., τύχη) is mentioned in Isa_65:11 (A.V. "troop"). The word, by a combination with the Arabic, may be legitimately taken to denotefortune (see Pococke, Spec. Hist. Arab. page 140). So Gesenius, Hitzig, and Ewald have taken Gad in their respective versions of Isaiah, rendering the clause, "who spread a table to fortune." This view, which is the general one, makes fortune in this passage to be an object of idolatrous worship. There is great disagreement, however, as to the power of nature which this name was intended to denote, and, from the scanty data, there is little else than mere opinion on the subject. The majority, among whom are some of the chief rabbinical commentators (see Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. col. 1034), as well as Gesenius, Munter, and Ewald, consider Gad to be the form under which the planet Jupiter was worshipped as the greater star of good fortune (see especially Gesenius, Comm. uber Jesaia, ad loc.). Others, among whom is Vitringa, suppose Gad to have represented the Sun, while Huetius regards it as a representative of the moon, and Movers, the latest writer of any eminence on Syro-Arabian idolatry, takes it to have been the planet Venus (Die Phinicier, 1:650). SEE BEL. On the other hand, if Gad be derived from גָּדָדin the sense of to press, to crowd, it may mean a troop, a heap (to which sense there is an allusion in Gen_49:19); and Hoheisel, as cited in Rosenmuller's Scholia, ad loc., as well as Deyling, in his Observat. Miscell. page 673, have each attempted a mode by which the passage might be explained if Gad and Meni were taken in the sense of troop and number (see further Dav. Mill's diss. ad.loc. in his Diss. Selecte, pages 81- 132). SEE MENI.
Some have supposed that a trace of the Syrian worship of Gad is to be found in the exclamation of Leah, when Zilpah bare a son (Gen_30:11), בָּגָּד, ba-gad, or, as the Keri has it, בָּא גָר, "Gad, or good fortune cometh." The Targum of Pseudo-Jonathan and the Jerusalem Targum both give "a lucky planet cometh," but it is most probable that this is an interpretation which grew out of the astrological beliefs of a later time, and we can infer nothing from it with respect to the idolatry of the inhabitants of Padan Aram in the age of Jacob. That this later belief in a deity Fortune existed, there are many things to prove. Buxtorf (Lex. Talm. s.v.) says that anciently it was a custom for each man to have in his house a splendid couch, which was not used, but was set apart for "the prince of the house," that is, for the star or constellation Fortune, to render it more propitious. This couch was called the couch of Gada, or good-luck (Talm. Babl. Sanhed. f. 20 a; Nedarim, f. 56 a). Again, in Bereshith Rabba, § 65, the words יָקוּם אָבַי, in Gen_27:31, are explained as an invocation to Gada or Fortune. Rabbi Moses the Priest, quoted by Aben-Ezra (on Gen_30:11), says "that לגד (Isa_65:11) signifies the star of luck, which points to everything that is good, for thus is the language of Kedar (Arabic); but he says that בא גד (Gen_30:11) is not used in the same sense."
Illustrations of the ancient custom of placing a banqueting table in honor of idols will be found in the table spread for the sun among the Ethiopians (Herod. 3:17, 18), and in the feast made by the Babylonians for their god Bel, which is described in the apocryphal history of Bel and the Dragon (comp. also Herod. 1:181, etc.). The table in the temple of Belus is described by Diodorus Siculus (2:9) as being of beaten gold, 40 feet long, 15 wide, and weighing 500 talents. On it were placed two drinking-cups (καρχήσια) weighing 30 talents, two censers of 300 talents each, and three golden goblets, that of Jupiter or Bel weighing 1200 Babylonian talents. The couch and table of the god in the temple of Zeus Tryphilius at Patara, in the island of Panchea, are mentioned by Diodorus (5:46; comp. also Virgil, AEn. 2:763). In addition to the opinions which have been referred to above, may be quoted that of Stephen le Moyne (Var. Sacror. page 363), who says that Gad is the goat of Mendes, worshipped by the Egyptians as an embellem of the sun; and of Le Clerc (Comm. in Isa.) and Lakemacher (Obs. Php_4:18, etc.), who identify Gad with Hecate. Macrobius (Sat. 1:19) tells us that in the later Egyptian mythology Τύχη was worshipped as one of the four deities who presided over birth, and was represented by the moon. This will perhaps throw some light upon the rendering of the Sept. as given by Jerome. Traces of the worship of Gad remain in the proper names Baal Gad and Giddeneme (Plaut. Poen. 5:3), the latter of which Gesenius' (Mon. Phan. page 407) renders גר נעמה, "favoring fortune" (comp. Wirth, De Gad et Meni Judaeorum hodieanorum diis, Altorf, 1725). SEE BAAL.
4. For the plant gad, SEE CORIANDER. Gadara (τὰ Γάδαρα in Josephus, prob. from גֶּדֶר, a wall SEE GEDERAH; only in N.T. in the Gentile Γαδαρηνός), a strong city (Josephus, Ant. 13:13, 3), situated near the river Hieromax (Pliny, H.N. 5:16), east of the Sea of Galilee, over against Scythopolis anti Tiberias (Eusebius, Onomasticon, s.v.), and 16 Roman miles distant from each of those places (Itin. Anton. ed. Wess. pages 196, 198; Tab. Peut.), or 60 stadia from the latter (Joseph. Life, § 65). It stood on the top of a hill, at the foot of which, upon the banks of the Hieromax, three miles distant, were warm springs and baths called Amatha (Onom. s.v. AEtham and Gadara; Itin. Ant. Martyr.). Josephus calls it the capital of Peraea (War, 4:3), and Polybius says it was one of the most strongly fortified cities in the country (5:71, 3). A large district was attached to it, called by Josephus Gadaritis (Γαδαρῖτις, War, 3:10, 10); Strabo also informs us that the warm healing springs were "in the territory of Gadara" (ἐν τῇ Γαδαρίδι, Geog. 16 They were termed Thermae Heliae, and were reckoned inferior only to those of Baite (Easel). Onomast.). According to Epiphanius (adv. Heares. 1:131), a yearly festival was held at these baths (Reland, page 775). The caverns in the rocks are also mentioned by Epiphanius (1.c.) in terms which seem to show that they were in his day used for dwellings as well as for tombs. Gadara itself is not mentioned in the Bible, but it is evidently identical with the "country of the Gadarenes" (χώρα or περίχωρος τῶν Γαδαρηνῶν, Mar_5:1; Luk_8:26; Luk_8:37).
Gadara seems to have been founded and chiefly inhabited by Gentiles, for Josephus says of it, in conjunction with Gaza and Hippos, "they were Grecian cities" (Ant. 17:11, 4). The first historical notice of Gadara is its capture, along with Pella and other cities, by Antiochus the Great, in the year B.C. 218 (Joseph. Ant. 12:3, 3). About twenty years afterwards it was taken from the Syrians by Alex. Jannaus, after a siege of ten months (Ant. 13:13, 3; War, 1:4, 2). The Jews retained possession of it for some time; but the place having been destroyed during their civil wars, it was rebuilt by Pompey to gratify his freedman Demetrius, who was a Gadarene (War, 1:7, 7). When Gabinius, the proconsul of Syria, changed the government of Judaea by dividing the country into five districts, and placing each under the authority of a council, Gadara was made the capital of one of these districts (War, 1:8, 5). The territory of Gadara, with the adjoining one of Hippos, was added by Augustus to the kingdom of Herod the Great (Ant. 15:7, 3); from which, on the death of the latter, it was, sundered, and joined to the province of Syria (Joseph. War, 2:6, 3). According to the present text of the Jewish historian, Gadara was captured by Vespasian on the first outbreak of the war with the Jews, all its inhabitants massacred, and the town itself, with the surrounding villages, reduced to ashes (Joseph. War, 3:7, 1); but there is good reason to believe (see Robinson, Later Bib. Res. p. 87, note) that the place there referred to is GABARA SEE GABARA (q.v.). However that may have been, Gadara was at this time one of the most important cities cast of the Jordan (Joseph. War, 4:8, 3). Stephen of Byzantium (page 254) reckoned it a part of Coele-Syria, and Pliny (Hist. Nat. 5:16) a part of the Decapolis (comp. William of Tyre, 17:13). At a later period it was the seat of an episcopal see in Palaestina Secunda, whose bishops are named in the councils of Nice and Ephesus (Reland, Palaest. pages 176, 215, 223, 226). It is also mentioned in the Talmud (Reland, page 775; Ritter, Erdk. 17:318). For coins, see Eckhel (Doctr. Num. 3:348). It fell to ruins soon after the Mohammedan conquest, and has now been; deserted for centuries, with the exception of a few families of shepherds, who occasionally find a home in its rock-hewn tombs.
Most modern authorities (Raumler, in his Palastina, Burckhardt, Seetzen) find Gadara in the present village of Um-keis. Buckingham, however, identifies this with Gamala (Trav. in Palest. 2:252 sq.); though it may be added that his facts, if not his reasonings, lead to a conclusion in favor of the general opinion. On a partially isolated hill at the north-western extremity of the mountains of Gilead, about sixteen miles from Tiberias, lie the extensive and remarkable ruins of Um-Keis. Three miles northward, at the foot of the hill, is the deep bed of the Sheriat el Mandhfir, the ancient Hieromax; and here are still the warm springs of Amatha (see Irby and Mangles, page 298; Lindsay, 2:97, 98). On the west is the Jordan valley; and on the south is wady el 'Arab, running parallel to the Mandhur. Um- Keis occupies the crest of the ridge between the two latter wadys; and as this crest declines in elevation towards the east as well as the west, the situation is strong and commanding. The city formed nearly a square. The upper part of it stood on a level spot, and appears to have been walled all round, the activities of the hill being on all sides exceedingly steep. The eastern gate of entrance has its portals still remaining. The prevalent orders of architecture are the Ionic and the Corinthian. The whole space occupied by the ruins is about two miles in circumference, and there are traces of fortifications all round, though now almost completely prostrate. These ruins bear testimony to the splendor of ancient Gadara. On the northern side of the hill is a theatre, and not far from it are the remains of one of the city gates. At the latter a street commences the via recta of Gadara which ran through the city in a straight line, having a colonnade on each side. The columns are all prostrate. On the west side of the hill is another larger theatre in better preservation. The principal part of the city lay to the west of these two theatres, on a level piece of ground. Now not a house, not a column, not a wall remains standing; yet the old pavement of the main street is nearly perfect, and here and there the traces of the chariot- wheels are visible on the stones, reminding one of the thoroughfares of Pompeii. Buckingham speaks of several grottoes, which formed the necropolis of the city, on the eastern brow of the hill. The first two examined by him were plain chambers hewn down so as to present a perpendicular front. The third tomb had a stone door, as perfect as on the day of its being first hung. The last was an excavated chamber, seven feet in height, twelve paces long, and ten broad; within it was a smaller room. Other tombs were discovered by Buckingham as he ascended the hill. He entered one in which were ten sepulchres, ranged along the inner wall of the chamber in a line, being pierced inward for their greatest length, and divided by a thin partition left in the rock, in each of which was cut a small niche for a lamp. Still more tombs were found, some containing sarcophagi, some without them; all, however, displaying more or less of architectural ornament. One of the ancient tombs was, when our traveler saw it, used as a carpenter's shop, the occupier of it being employed in constructing a rude plow. A perfect sarcophagus remained within, which was used by the family as a provision-chest. See Burckhardt, Syria. Page 270 sq.; Porter, in Journal of Sac. Lit. 6:281 sq.; Hackett, Illustr. of Script. page 190; Traill's Josephus, 1:145.
Gadara derives its greatest interest from having been the scene of our Lord's miracle in healing the daemoniacs (Mat_8:28-34; Mar_5:1-21; Luk_8:26-40). "They ware no clothes, neither abode in any house, but in the tombs." Christ came across the lake from Capernaum, and landed at the southeastern corner, where the steep, lofty bank of the eastern plateau breaks down into the plain of the Jordan. The daemoniacs met him a short distance from the shore; on the side of the adjoining declivity the "great herd of swine" were feeding; when the daemons went among them the whole herd rushed down that "steep place" into the lake and perished; the keepers ran up to the city and told the news, and the excited population came down in haste, and "besought Jesus that he would depart out of their coasts." The whole circumstances of the narrative are thus strikingly illustrated by the features of the country. Another thing is worthy of notice. The most interesting remains of Gadara are its tombs, which dot the cliffs for a considerable distance round the city, chiefly on the north-east declivity, but many beautifully-sculptured sarcophagi are scattered over the surrounding heights. They are excavated in the limestone rock, and consist of chambers of various dimensions, some more than 20 feet square, with recesses in the sides for bodies. The doors are slabs of stone, a few being ornamented with panels; some of them still remain in their places (Porter, Damascus, 2:54). The present inhabitants of Um-Keis are all troglodytes, "dwelling in tombs," like the poor maniacs of old, and occasionally they are almost as dangerous to the unprotected traveler. In the above account, in the Gospel of Matthew (8:28), we have the word Gergesenes (Γεργεσηνῶν, instead of Γαδαρηνῶν), which seems to be the same as the Hebrew גּרְגָּשִׁי(Sept. Γεργεσαῖος) in Gen_15:21, and Deu_7:1, the name of an old Canaanitish tribe SEE GIRGASHITES, which Jerome (in Comm. ad Genesis 15) locates on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias. Origen also says (Opp. 4:140) that a city called Gergesa anciently stood on the eastern side of the lake. Even were this true, still the other Gospels would be strictly accurate. Gadara was a large city, and its district would include Gergesa. But it must be remembered that the most ancient MSS. give the word Γεραηνῶν, while others have Γαδαρηνῶν the former reading is adopted by Griesbach and Lachmann. while Scholz prefers the latter; and either one or other of these seems preferable to Γεργεσηνῶν. SEE GERASA.
Gadarene (Γαδαρηνός), an inhabitant of GADARA SEE GADARA (q.v.), occurring only in the account of the daemoniacs cured by Christ (Mar_5:1; Luk_8:26; Luk_8:37), and perhaps to be read in the third Evangelist (Mat_8:28) instead of GERGESENE SEE GERGESENE (q.v.).
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