Tribe of Gad

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The Tribe of Gad (גָּד "soldier" or "luck", Standard Hebrew Gad, Tiberian Hebrew Gāḏ) was one of the Tribes of Israel. At its height, Gad occupied a region to the east of the River Jordan, though the exact location is ambiguous[1]; among the cities mentioned by the Bible as having at some point been part of Gad were Ramoth, Jaezer, Aroer, and Dibon, though some of these are marked elsewhere as belonging to Reuben[2]. The location was never secure from invasion and attacks, since to the south it was exposed to the Moabites, and like the other tribes east of the Jordan was exposed on the north and east to Aram-Damascus and later the Assyrians.

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[edit] Origin

According to the Torah, the tribe was founded by an individual, Gad the seventh son of Jacob, from whom it took its name; however some Biblical scholars view this also as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation[3]. In the Biblical account, Gad is one of the two descendants of Zilpah, a handmaid of Jacob, the other descendant being Asher; scholars see this as indicating that the authors saw Gad and Asher as being not of entirely Israelite origin (hence descendants of handmaids rather than of full wives)[4]. In common with Asher is the possibility that the tribal name derives from a deity worshipped by the tribe, Gad being thought by scholars to be likely to have taken its name from Gad, the semitic god of fortune[5]; the name of Gad does not appear in the Song of Deborah, which scholars regard as one of the oldest parts of the Bible, pre-dating most of the Torah[6].

Like Asher, Gad's geographic details are diverse and divergent[7], with cities sometimes indicated as being part of Gad, and sometimes as part of other tribes[8], and with inconsistent boundaries[9][10], with Gilead sometimes including Gad[11] and sometimes not[12]. Furthermore, the Moabite Stone seemingly differentiates between the kingdom of Israel and the tribe of Gad, presenting Gad as predating Israel in the lands east of the Jordan[13], and the books of Samuel and of Kings appear to portray Gad as Israel's enemy, to the extent that Jeroboam built the fortress of Penuel just to keep the tribe in check. These details seems to indicate that Gad was originally a northwards-migrating nomadic tribe, at a time when the other tribes were quite settled in Canaan[14].

In the biblical account, Gad's presence on the east of the Jordan is explained as a matter of the tribe desiring the land as soon as they saw it, before they had even crossed the Jordan under Joshua, and conquered Canaan. Classical rabbinical literature regards this selection of the other side by Gad as something for which they should be blamed, remarking that, as mentioned in Ecclesiastes, the full stomach of the rich denies them sleep[15][16].

[edit] Fate

Though initially forming part of the Kingdom of Israel, from the biblical account it appears that under Uzziah and Jotham the tribe of Gad joined with the kingdom of Judah instead. Nevertheless, when Tiglath-pileser III annexed the kingdom of Israel in about 733-731 BC, Gad also fell victim to the actions of the Assyrians, and the tribe were exiled; in the Talmud, it is Gad, along with the tribe of Reuben, that are portrayed as being the first victims of this fate. The manner of the exile led to the further history of the tribe being lost, and according to the Book of Jeremiah, their former lands were (re)conquered by the Ammonites[17].

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ This article incorporates text from the 1901–1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, a publication now in the public domain.
  2. ^ ibid
  3. ^ Peake's commentary on the Bible
  4. ^ Jewish Encyclopedia
  5. ^ Jewish Encyclopedia
  6. ^ Peake's commentary on the Bible
  7. ^ Jewish Encyclopedia
  8. ^ compare Numbers 33:45 with Joshua 13:15 et seq.
  9. ^ compare Joshua 13:24-27 to Joshua 13:15
  10. ^ Jewish Encyclopedia
  11. ^ for example in Judges 5:17
  12. ^ 2 Samuel 24:5 / Joshua 13:24 et seq.
  13. ^ Jewish Encyclopedia
  14. ^ ibid
  15. ^ Ecclesiastes 5:12b
  16. ^ Jewish Encyclopedia
  17. ^ Jeremiah 49:1
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