Tribe of Gad
Tribes of Israel |
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According to the
Biblical narrative
After the conquest of the land by Joshua until the formation of the first
The strangely cruel terms given by Nahash for surrender were explained by
[N]ahash, king of Ammonites would put hard pressure on the descendants of Gad and the descendants of Ruben and would gouge everyone's right eye out, but no res(cuer) would be provided for Israel and there was not left anyone among the children of Israel in the Tr(ans Jordan) whose right eye Nahash the king of Ammonites did not gouge out but be(hold) seven thousand men (escaped the power of) Ammonites and they arrived at (Ya)besh Gilead. About a month later Nahash the Ammonite went up and besieged Jabesh-Gilead.
With the growth of the threat from Philistine incursions, the Israelite tribes decided to form a strong centralised monarchy to meet the challenge, and the Tribe of Gad joined the new kingdom with Saul as the first king. After the death of Saul, all the tribes other than Judah remained loyal to the House of Saul, but after the death of Saul's son Ish-bosheth, successor to the throne of Israel, the Tribe of Gad joined the other northern Israelite tribes in making Judah's king David the king of a re-united Kingdom of Israel. However, on the accession of David's grandson Rehoboam, in c. 930 BC the northern tribes split from the House of David and from Saul's tribe Benjamin to reform Israel as the Northern Kingdom. Gad was a member of the Northern Kingdom until the kingdom was conquered by Assyria in c. 723 BC and the population deported.
From that time onwards, the Tribe of Gad has been counted as one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.
A genealogy of the "children of Gad" is set out in 1 Chronicles 5:11–17.
Gad is also mentioned in the Mesha Stele: " And the men of Gad lived in the land of Ataroth from ancient times, and the king of Israel built Ataroth for himself, and I fought against the city, and I captured it, and I killed all the people from the city as a sacrifice for Kemoš and for Moab, and I brought back the fire-hearth of his uncle from there, and I hauled it before the face of Kemoš in Kerioth, and I made the men of Sharon live there, as well as the men of Maharith."
Tribal territory
Following the completion of the conquest of
- "The border was sea of Chinnerethbeyond the Jordan eastward."
Among the cities mentioned in Numbers 32:34 as having at some point been part of territory of the Tribe of Gad were
The location was never secure from invasion and attacks, since to the south it was exposed to the
Origin
According to the
Like Asher, Gad's geographic details are diverse and divergent,
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
Family tree
Gad | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Zephon | Haggi | Shuni | Ezbon | Eri | Arodi | Areli | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Fate
Though initially forming part of the
See also
References
- ^ Frank Moore Cross, Donald W. Parry, Richard J. Saley and Eugene Ulrich, Qumran Cave 4 – XII, 1-2 Samuel (Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Series, XVII), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005
- ISBN 0-8028-4960-1)
- ^ Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Gad". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
- Peake's commentary on the Bible
- ^ a b c d e f g h Jewish Encyclopedia
- ^ compare Numbers 33:45 with Joshua 13:15 et seq.
- ^ compare Joshua 13:24–27 to Joshua 13:15
- ^ for example in Judges 5:17
- ^ 2 Samuel 24:5 and Joshua 13:24–27
- ^ Ecclesiastes 5:12b
- ^ Jeremiah 49:1
- ISBN 978-0-275-97000-0. p. 2
- ^ Haskel, Adam (December 5, 2022). "Representatives of emergent African communities 'below the Jewish radar' to gather". JNS.org.
External links
- Map of Gad Tribal territory, 1650. Thomas Fuller. Eran Laor Cartographic Collection, The National Library of Israel.