Gad

Gad was, according to the Book of Genesis, the seventh son of the patriarch Jacob and the firstborn of Zilpah, the maidservant of Leah. From him comes the tribe of Gad, one of the twelve tribes of Israel. The Church remembers him among the holy patriarchs and forefathers of the Lord, on the Sundays before the Nativity (the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers and the Sunday of the Holy Fathers).

Birth and name

Leah, who had borne four sons and had stopped bearing children, gave her maidservant Zilpah to Jacob, as was the custom of the time. Zilpah bore a son, and Leah said "Good fortune," and named him Gad (Genesis 30:9-11). The name means "luck" or "fortune." After Gad, Zilpah bore Asher.

The tribe of Gad

Gad had seven sons: Zephon, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi and Areli. He went down into Egypt with Jacob and his brothers (Genesis 46:16). In his blessing Jacob said of Gad: "Raiders shall raid Gad, but he shall raid at their heels" (Genesis 49:19). At the census in the wilderness of Sinai the tribe counted 45,650 men able to bear arms, and at the second census 40,500.

The tribe of Gad, with Reuben and half of Manasseh, asked Moses for an inheritance east of the Jordan, in the pastoral land of Gilead (Numbers 32). Moses agreed on the condition that their fighting men cross the Jordan and stand with their brothers until Canaan was taken. Before his death Moses blessed the tribe: "Blessed be he who enlarges Gad. Gad crouches like a lion" (Deuteronomy 33:20). The First Book of Chronicles tells of men of Gad among the warriors of David, "whose faces were like the faces of lions, and who were as swift as gazelles on the mountains" (1 Chronicles 12:8). The prophet Gad, David's seer, is a different person, and Scripture does not say to which tribe he belonged.

Living on the border of the land, the tribe was among the first to be struck by neighbouring peoples. In Revelation (7:5), twelve thousand of the tribe of Gad are sealed.

Traditions

Jewish tradition says that Gad lived a hundred and twenty-⁠five years and was a man of great strength. A tomb attributed to him is shown by local tradition at As-⁠Salt in present-⁠day Jordan. Scripture says nothing about his death.