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The Tribe of Gad 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; among the cities mentioned by the Bible
Bible

The Bible is the central religious text of Judaism and Christianity. The exact Books of the Bible is dependent on the religious traditions of specific denominations....
 as having at some point been part of Gad were Ramoth
Ramoth

Ramoth or Remeth may refer to:* one of several places in ancient Israel:** Ramoth-Gilead, a Levite city of refuge** Baalath-Beer, also known as Ramoth of the South, a city of the tribe of Simeon...
, Jaezer, Aroer
Aroer

Aroer is a town on the north bank of the River Arnon to the east of the Dead Sea, in present-day Jordan.The town was an ancient Moabite settlement, and is mentioned in the Bible....
, and Dibon, though some of these are marked elsewhere as belonging to Reuben
Tribe of Reuben

The Tribe of Reuben was one of the Israelites.At its height, the territory it occupied was on the immediate east of the Dead Sea, reaching from the Arnon river in the south, and as far north as the Dead Sea stretched, with an eastern border vaguely defined by the land dissolving into desert; the territory included the plain of Madaba....
. 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 Assyria
Assyria

Assyria was a political state centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history....
ns.






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The Tribe of Gad 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; among the cities mentioned by the Bible
Bible

The Bible is the central religious text of Judaism and Christianity. The exact Books of the Bible is dependent on the religious traditions of specific denominations....
 as having at some point been part of Gad were Ramoth
Ramoth

Ramoth or Remeth may refer to:* one of several places in ancient Israel:** Ramoth-Gilead, a Levite city of refuge** Baalath-Beer, also known as Ramoth of the South, a city of the tribe of Simeon...
, Jaezer, Aroer
Aroer

Aroer is a town on the north bank of the River Arnon to the east of the Dead Sea, in present-day Jordan.The town was an ancient Moabite settlement, and is mentioned in the Bible....
, and Dibon, though some of these are marked elsewhere as belonging to Reuben
Tribe of Reuben

The Tribe of Reuben was one of the Israelites.At its height, the territory it occupied was on the immediate east of the Dead Sea, reaching from the Arnon river in the south, and as far north as the Dead Sea stretched, with an eastern border vaguely defined by the land dissolving into desert; the territory included the plain of Madaba....
. 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 Assyria
Assyria

Assyria was a political state centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history....
ns.

Origin


According to the Torah
Torah

The term "Torah" , or Five Books of Moses or Pentateuch, refers to the entirety of Judaism's founding Halakha and ethical religious texts....
, the tribe was founded by an individual, Gad
Gad (Biblical figure)

Gad was, according to the Book of Genesis, the first son of Jacob and Zilpah, the seventh of Jacob overall, and the founder of the Israelites of Tribe of Gad; however some Biblical criticism view this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation....
 the seventh son of Jacob
Jacob

According to the Hebrew Bible, Jacob , also known as Israel , was the third Biblical patriarchs and the ancestor of the twelve Israelites....
, from whom it took its name; however some Biblical scholars
Biblical criticism

Biblical criticism is "the study and investigation of biblical writings that seeks to make discerning and discriminating judgments about these writings." It asks when and where a particular text originated; how, why, by whom, for whom, and in what circumstances it was produced; what influences were at work in its production; what sources we...
 view this also as postdiction, an eponym
Eponym

An eponym is a person, whether real or fictitious, after whom a particular toponym, ethnonym, regnal year, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named....
ous metaphor
Metaphor

Metaphor is language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects. It is a figure of speech that compares two or more things without using the words "like" or "as." More generally, a metaphor describes a first subject as being or equal to a second object in some way....
 providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation. In the Biblical account, Gad is one of the two descendants of Zilpah
Zilpah

In the Book of Genesis, Zilpah is Leah's handmaid and the second concubine of Jacob and the mother of Gad and Asher.Zilpah is given to Leah as a handmaid by Leah's father, Laban , upon Leah's marriage to Jacob ....
, a handmaid of Jacob, the other descendant being Asher
Asher

Asher , in the Book of Genesis, is the second son of Jacob and Zilpah, and the founder of the Hebrew tribe of Tribe of Asher.Ashar is also a place in Israel....
; 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). 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
Gad (deity)

Gad was the name of the pan-Semitic deity of fortune, and is attested in ancient records of Aram and Arabia. Gad is also mentioned by the Book of Isaiah , as having been worshipped by a number of Hebrews during the babylonian captivity....
, the semitic god of fortune; 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.

Like Asher, Gad's geographic details are diverse and divergent, with cities sometimes indicated as being part of Gad, and sometimes as part of other tribes, and with inconsistent boundaries, with Gilead
Gilead

From the Scriptures, "Gilead" means hill of testimony or mound of witness, , a mountainous region east of the Jordan River, situated in the present-day Kingdom of Jordan....
 sometimes including Gad and sometimes not. 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, and the books of Samuel
Books of Samuel

The Books of Samuel are part of the Tanakh and also of the Christianity Old Testament. The work was originally written in Hebrew language, and the Book of Samuel originally formed a single text, as they are often considered today in Hebrew bibles....
 and of Kings
Books of Kings

The Books of Kings are a part of Judaism's Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible. They were originally written in Hebrew language and were later included by Christianity as part of the Old Testament....
 appear to portray Gad as Israel's enemy, to the extent that Jeroboam
Jeroboam

Jeroboam He was the first king of the break-away ten tribes or Northern Kingdom of Israel, over whom he reigned twenty-two years.William F....
 built the fortress of Penuel
Penuel

Penuel, also known as the "face of el ", is a place not far from Sukkot#Sukkot_as_a_place, on the east of the Jordan River and north of the river Jabbok....
 just to keep the tribe in check. These details seems to indicate that Gad was originally a northwards-migrating nomad
Nomad

Nomadic people, , also known as nomads, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than Settler in one location....
ic tribe, at a time when the other tribes were quite settled in Canaan.

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
Joshua

Joshua, Jehoshuah or Yehoshua , born in Egypt, was a biblical Israelite leader who succeeded Moses. His story is told in the Hebrew Bible, chiefly in the books Book of Exodus, Book of Numbers and Book of Joshua....
, and conquered Canaan
Canaan

Canaan is an ancient term for a region encompassing modern-day Israel and Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories, plus adjoining coastal lands and parts of Jordan, Syria and northeastern Egypt....
. 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
Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes is a book of the Hebrew Bible. The English name derives from the Greek language translation of the Hebrew #Title.The main speaker in the book, identified by the name or title Qohelet, introduces himself as "son of David, and king in Jerusalem." The work consists of personal or autobiographic matter, at times expressed in aph...
, the full stomach of the rich denies them sleep.

Fate


Though initially forming part of the Kingdom of Israel
Kingdom of Israel

The Kingdom of Israel was one of the successor states to the older United Monarchy . It existed roughly from the 930s BC until about the 720s BC....
, from the biblical account it appears that under Uzziah and Jotham
Jotham

Jotham is the name of two people of the Hebrew Bible:1. The youngest of Gideon's seventy sons. He escaped when the rest were put to death by the order of Abimelech ....
 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
Assyrians

Assyrians or Assyrian people may refer to :*the Ancient Assyrians*the modern Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac peopleSee also*Assyrian ...
, and the tribe were exiled; in the Talmud
Talmud

The Talmud is a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Halakha, Jewish ethics, customs, and history. It is a central text of mainstream Judaism....
, it is Gad, along with the tribe of Reuben
Tribe of Reuben

The Tribe of Reuben was one of the Israelites.At its height, the territory it occupied was on the immediate east of the Dead Sea, reaching from the Arnon river in the south, and as far north as the Dead Sea stretched, with an eastern border vaguely defined by the land dissolving into desert; the territory included the plain of Madaba....
, 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
Book of Jeremiah

The Book of Jeremiah, or Jeremiah , is part of the Hebrew Bible, Judaism's Tanakh, and later became a part of Christianity's Old Testament....
, their former lands were (re)conquered by the Ammon
Ammon

Ammon or Ammonites , also referred to in the Bible as the "children of Ammon," were a people living east of the Jordan river whose origin the Old Testament traces to an illegitimate son of Lot , the nephew of the patriarch Abraham, as with the Moabites....
ites.

See also

  • Gad (Biblical figure)
    Gad (Biblical figure)

    Gad was, according to the Book of Genesis, the first son of Jacob and Zilpah, the seventh of Jacob overall, and the founder of the Israelites of Tribe of Gad; however some Biblical criticism view this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation....
  • Gad (deity)
    Gad (deity)

    Gad was the name of the pan-Semitic deity of fortune, and is attested in ancient records of Aram and Arabia. Gad is also mentioned by the Book of Isaiah , as having been worshipped by a number of Hebrews during the babylonian captivity....