Mark Twain commented that the “Galilee has no boundaries but the broad compass of the heavens, and is a theatre meet for great events.”26The Innocents Abroad, 245. Perhaps only poetry can express how the bounteous charm of Naĥalat Naphtali can nurture creativity and yearning for the Sublime:
הַכַּרְמֶל הוּא הַר,
הַיַּרְדֵּן נָהָר,
הַכִּנֶּרֶת יָם,
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם עִיר
וְהַגָּלִיל הוּא שִׁיר
שֶׁל הַר
נָהָר
וְיָם
וָעִיר.
הַגָּלִיל הוּא שִׁיר
הַגָּלִיל הוּא שִׁיר.
דוד יעקב קמזון27שירים חדשים לזמרה בציבור ולמקהלה (טקסטים בלבד) (ירושלים: עבר, תש״ב 1942), 125.
The Carmel is a mountain
The Jordan, a river
The Kinneret, a sea
Jerusalem, a city.
But the Galilee is a song
Of mountain
And river
And sea
And city.
The Galilee is a song,
The Galilee is a song.
David Jacob Kamzon
In earnest thought he seems to stand
As if across a lonely sea
He gazed impatient of the land.
Out of the noisy centuries
The foolish and the fearful fade;
Yet burn unquenched these warrior eyes,
Time hath not dimmed, nor death dismayed.
Walter de la Mare, “A Portrait of a Warrior”
Gad, the Confident Warrior
Gad represented the entrance of yet another force into the family. The first of Leah’s surrogate children, he was marked by his warrior-like tendency, aggressiveness, and confidence. Like all the firstborns, he felt the complexity of the painful family situation most acutely, reflected in the formation of his personality.1Gad was clearly aligned with Dan, another troubled firstborn, in the blessings of Jacob. His salient characteristic of military confidence became evident in both Jacob’s and Moses’s blessings, as well as through the unfolding history of the tribe that bore his name. As with all of the shevatim, Gad’s character was rooted in the story of his birth.
Leah was a woman who understood well that each child she bore for her husband cemented his hard-won love. (Reuben: “Behold! A son! Now my husband will love me!” Simeon: “The Lord has heard that I am unloved and has given me this one also.” Levi: “This time my husband will become attached to me, for I have borne him three sons.”) Yet after the birth of her fourth son, Judah, her streak seemingly ran its course: va-ta’amod mi-ledet – “and she ceased giving birth” (Genesis 29:35). This affected her keenly. The text mentioned it twice, driving home the significance of Leah’s secondary infertility.
Meanwhile, Rachel initiated a desperate strategy learned from Sarah, wife of Abraham: if you can’t do it yourself, find a suitable replacement. Barren Rachel built her family through an ancient arrangement of surrogacy. She gave her maidservant, Bilhah, to Jacob to bear the children who in name and upbringing were hers: Dan and Naphtali. “She shall birth through my knees [in my stead], and I, too, shall be built through her.”2Genesis 30:3.
Leah immediately followed suit. After being told that Rachel gave her maidservant Bilhah to Jacob, the next verse informs us that Leah gave her maidservant Zilpah to Jacob as well. “When Leah saw that she had stopped bearing, she took her maid Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as concubine” (Genesis 30:9).
In contrast to Rachel, Leah provided no reason for giving Zilpah to Jacob as a wife. A complex mix of jealousy and vision lay behind this apparently inexplicable action. Latent was the competition with the sister who then had claim to both children with Jacob, as well as his unaffected love. Beyond that, though, lay a more reasoned method: a determined sense that she should be mothering most of Jacob’s children.3BR 71:4. Leah saw herself as the primary mother, the one whose position in the family was based on her bearing Jacob the bulk of his children. She therefore gave Zilpah to Jacob, and alongside the four that she already bore were the two children emerging from this new union. All were named by her, and all she considered her own.
This was the complex context into which Gad emerged: a son of Leah’s, yet with the liminality and lack of concrete placement we have seen in the maidservants’ children.4Although commentators stress the idea that the maidservants of Jacob were taken by him as wives rather than concubines (Radak 30:5; Bekhor Shor 30:9), midrashic strains emphasize the awareness by the brothers that there existed (at least in potential) a hierarchy among Jacob’s women, with Rachel and Leah clearly superior to their maidservants. Thus, Joseph falsely reported to Jacob that the sons of Leah were deriding the maidservants’ sons (BR 84:7; Tan. VaYeshev 7), or alternatively that the maidservants’ sons were eating limbs torn off living animals, a strong taboo within their family traditions (BR 84:7; PRE 38). Though the midrash also presented all four women as daughters of Laban, Bilhah and Zilpah started out life with the inferior status as offspring borne from Laban’s concubines (BR 74:13); their status remained that of maidservants until Jacob took them as wives (according to one midrash, this happened only after the deaths of Rachel and Leah; Pa’aneaĥ Razah, Genesis 27:2). Like Dan, he, more than any of Leah’s natural-born sons, marked the furthest reaches of his mother’s salient characteristic. Leah was here at her most aggressive in pursuing her husband’s affections – and in securing her place of dominance as the head mother. His personality, like Dan’s, reflected the unique circumstances of his birth. His name reflected the complexity of his situation.
Leah named him simply, but stealthily: “And Leah said, ‘bagad’ – thereupon she called him ‘Gad’” (Genesis 30:11). This enigmatic statement contained many possible connotations, and commentators are torn as to what she meant. First, the most obvious, somewhat sinister reading: the word bagad is built off of the root b-g-d, treachery. Leah was schooled in deception, having passed herself off as her sister on her wedding night, betraying Jacob. Here, she again usurped her sister’s place. The midrash highlighted this problematic element of Leah’s strong will by claiming that, in this surrogacy, Leah repeated her first deceit. She dressed Zilpah in her garment,5Her beged, from the same root b-g-d. Sefer Ha-Ĥasidim, 480. thus duping Jacob again.
Leah thus acknowledged the dark side of her tenacity. She named her son after her aggressiveness in claiming her role as the dominant wife, celebrating, but confessing her ill-gained status.
This dark potential to pursue one’s own resolve at the expense of others surfaced again, in the tribe’s future, albeit with a twist. After the nation defeated the mighty kings Sihon and Og, Gad requested to settle in those conquered lands on the east bank of the Jordan. Moses accused the tribe of betraying the nation by claiming their portion on the “wrong” side of the Jordan.
Are your brothers to go to war while you stay here? Why will you turn the minds of the Israelites from crossing into the land that the Lord has given them?…And now you, a breed of sinful men…will bring calamity upon all this people.
Numbers 32:6–15
Gad denied the accusation, and generously offered to lead the nation in battle against Canaan until all of the other tribes were settled. Rather than treachery, Gad ended up expressing the positive side of aggressiveness: the ability to fight and to lead.6Commentators have proffered that in choosing this name, Leah was joyously exclaiming her luck in this condensed version of “בא גד” – “fortune has come!” (Rashi, Rashbam, Genesis 30:11.) To avoid the generic blandness of “fortune,” the midrash imbues the name with the significance of a prophecy: In what way was Gad fortunate? He inherited his naĥalah before the other brothers (Targum Yerushalmi, Genesis 30:11).
With this reading, Gad’s name was formed from the verb b-w-’, meaning “to come,” with an elided aleph, compounded with the noun gad, meaning “fortune.” An alternative explanation relies on building the name off of the root g-d-d, which means “to sever”; a midrash therefore extrapolates that his name indicated that the boy was born already circumcised (Rashi on 30:11, quoting unnamed midrash). Fortunate for him, indeed!
The most likely germane understanding of Gad’s name relied on the root g-d-d, but saw the origin of Leah’s inspiration in the word gedud, meaning “troops,” or “slayers.”7Ibn Ezra, Genesis 30:1. “The warrior has arrived!” announced Leah. He will be the trooper amongst my sons, solidly marking my fifth claim to this family, my ability to fight for what I want.
Jacob clearly noted this aspect of his son’s name, as his blessing to Gad was replete with military jargon.
Gad shall be raided by raiders,
But he shall raid at their heels.
Genesis 49:19
Gad’s name marked him as the soldier son – and this was indeed the task he took upon himself again and again, until his actions as well as his name defined him as such.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch wove together these two meanings of the name – fortune and troops – drawing a conceptual link between them. A gedud, or shock troop, falls on the enemy unexpectedly. So too did this son provide a sudden turn of fortune for Leah, who now had even more children in her arsenal.
Gad’s future was clearly on the battlefield. The tribal iconography was explicit: the tribe’s stone on the priestly breastplate was the aĥlamah, (crystal, or amethyst), symbolic of courage in battle,8Rabbenu Baĥya, Exodus 28:17. and their flag was embossed with an army tent or fortress.9BaR 2:7. In the wilderness encampment formation around the Tabernacle, assertive Gad was grouped with Reuben, their neighbor and associate on the eastern Jordan, and Simeon, the latter being Gad’s martial charge, whom they were bound to protect from incurring punishment.10BaR 2:10. For why Simeon was considered a sinful tribe that needed an extra measure of protection, see chapter 3 on Simeon. Perhaps even the colors of the flag, described as “neither white nor black, but a mix of black and white,”11BaR 2:7. might hint to the moral and physical complexities of the battlefield – Gad’s turf.
In declaring Gad’s destiny, dying Jacob played with the root of his son’s name over and over again: “Gad gedud yigudenu ve-hu yugad ekev” (Gad might be trampled by troops, but he will trample at their heels! Genesis 49:19). I base this translation on the approach of most commentators, who saw in Jacob’s words a cautious optimism. You, Gad, will be attacked repeatedly, but in the end you shall triumph.12Ibn Ezra, Ramban, Radak, Ralbag. See also BR 98:15. Others13Rashi, Rashbam, Bekhor Shor. prefer a wholly positive reading: “Gad, troops shall form in your wake, and you will soldier at their heels!”
In this sense, the blessing indicated that the descendants of Gad would lead the ranks of Israel into battle, and they would be sure to protect the rear when the nation retreated. Both interpretations focused on Gad’s fighting spirit and soldierly ways.
There is little in the text concerning Gad’s personal life, a fact consistent for exactly half of Jacob’s sons. Rabbinic midrash also does not single out any noteworthy vignettes from Gad’s life. Interestingly, however, the pseudepigraphal Testament of Gad traces early expressions of this warrior spirit in Gad’s personal life. It claims that Gad, more so than his brothers, particularly hated Joseph. Gad, as per this account, was a very brave shepherd. When the herd was attacked by wild animals, he took the predator by one of its legs, whirled it over his head and flung it away. It happened once that Gad saved a lamb from the jaws of a bear; he then reluctantly had to slaughter the lamb because it was so badly injured. Upon seeing this, Joseph misunderstood and reported to his father that Gad had killed one of the flock to eat, implying that he was careless with his father’s animals. On his deathbed, Gad confessed to his children that he had since harbored a maniacal hatred toward Joseph. He concluded by reminding them that he almost died of liver illness, which he attributed to acrimonious bile pooling in his liver.14“As my liver felt no mercy toward Joseph, unmerciful suffering was caused unto me by my liver” (Testament of Gad, 2). It should be noted that the midrashic motif in rabbinical literature swayed heavily toward stressing the friendship between Joseph and the sons of the maidservants. If there was any rivalry, it was between the sons of Leah and the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah. See footnote 4 in this chapter.
We have no other sources regarding Gad’s personal life that hinted to the future of his tribe. The rest of the Torah was also relatively silent regarding this tribe. After the altercation with Moses in which Gad promised to lead his brethren into battle, the tribe’s position as warriors seemed secure. This was the blessing bestowed upon the tribe by Moses:
And of Gad he said:
Blessed is He who enlarges Gad;
Poised is he like a lion, to tear off arm and scalp.
He chose for himself the best,
For there is the portion of the revered chieftain,
Where the heads of the people come.
He executed the Lord’s judgments
And His decisions for Israel.
Deuteronomy 33:20–21
The blessing was studded with promises of wealth, military success, primacy, and leadership, all of which came to fruition.
In for the Long Run: Gad the Soldier
Leah and Jacob invested incipient Gad with the promise of success on the battlefield. Moses added another layer to Gad’s gifts, lauding him for his stamina and fortitude when leading the nation in their prolonged conquest:
He executed the Lord’s judgments,
And His decisions for Israel.
Deuteronomy 33:21
They were true to their word and faithful in their promise to remain across the Jordan until the land was conquered and divided (Rashi, ad loc.).
More than Reuben, his partner in approaching Moses, Gad was singled out as the initiator, the dominant partner who fights Israel’s battles.15The tribal prince was named Elyasaf ben Deu’el, a name homiletically interpreted to symbolize the tribe’s willingness to sally forth as military trailblazers on behalf of the nation, though that meant leaving their own families and possessions vulnerable to attack (Midrash Aggadah, Numbers 1:14).
The Wealth of Gad
Gad were granted a large naĥalah to accommodate their numbers and wealth. The first allusion to the tribal assets was reflected in this verse: “U-mikneh rav hayah livenei Reuven u-livenei Gad atzum me’od” (Numbers 32:1). Many translate this as: “Much cattle was accrued by the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad – exceedingly much!”
An alternative parsing of the verse was offered by the biblical commentator Rabbi Naphtali Tzvi Judah Berlin. His interpretation is: “Much cattle was accrued by the sons of Reuben; but the sons of Gad had even more.”16Ha-Emek Davar, Numbers 32:1.
While Reuben was certainly blessed with wealth, here – and in virtually every other reference to the two tribes – Gad was dominant. This explains why most of the cities of the Mishor, the tableland plateau in the Transjordan, were built by, or at least inhabited by, the tribe of Gad, despite the fact that most of them fell within the purview of Reuben’s naĥalah. This also explains why it is specifically Gad’s cities that are described as “fortified towns and enclosures for flocks.”17Numbers 32:36. For further reference regarding division of cities, see the discussion above concerning the contours of Reuben’s naĥalah in chapter 1. Gad, more than Reuben, had need for fortified cities to protect his significant wealth, and he managed to retain a more secure administrative structure than did his older brother.18Regarding Reuben’s decline from urbanism to nomadism, see “The End of Reuben” in chapter 1.
The midrash actually finds allusion to this within the words of Moses’s blessing:
And of Gad he said: “Blessed is He Who grants expanse to Gad; he dwells like a lion” (Deuteronomy 33:20). What does this verse mean? That the borders of Gad will expand and extend onward toward the east, and therefore Gad will have the strength of a lion, necessary to defend his territory.
Sifrei, Deuteronomy 355
In area, Gad’s territory certainly dominated that of Reuben. Furthermore, the whole of the Transjordan was sometimes referred to as “the land of Gad and Gilead,”19I Samuel 13:7. clearly indicating that Gad was paramount in the region. Gad was also the only tribe singled out by Mesha of Moab in his ninth-century Bce victory stele as specifically occupying territory to the east of the Jordan.
Primacy of Gad over Reuben
As we have seen just from the vignettes above, Leah’s two firstborn sons – Gad and Reuben – were inextricably linked. They were placed beside each other in the encampment in the desert; they inherited together on the left side of the Jordan; Gad dwelled within Reuben’s very cities. And Gad, the younger-born surrogate son, dominated throughout.
The preeminence of Gad over Reuben was not manifest only in land or military leadership. Time and again, Gad and Reuben are grouped together, and the text almost always lists Gad first.
The Gadites and Reubenites came to Moses…
Numbers 32:2
Moses said to the Gadites and Reubenites…
Numbers 32:6
The Gadites and Reubenites said…
Numbers 32:25
When the tribes are listed in order, Reuben retains his position as firstborn and always precedes Gad. Yet when grouped together without the other tribes, the younger brother’s tribe dominates. Invariably, Gad surpassed its partner Reuben in wealth and military prowess.
This follows the pattern of their blessings. In both Jacob and Moses’s final words, the younger brother was praised while the eldest was scorned. Reuben was scourged by Jacob: “Unstable as water, you shall excel no longer” (Genesis 49:4). Moses mitigated this with a promise of life, but the curse remains standing: “Reuben shall live and not die, though he be few in number” (Deuteronomy 33:6).
Gad, by contrast, was blessed by Jacob: “He shall raid at [his enemies’] heels” (Genesis 49:19). And this was amplified by Moses: “He executed the Lord’s judgments/And His decisions for Israel” (Deuteronomy 33:21).
Reuben and Gad were linked together in a shared destiny at the outset of the Israelite conquest. Both had significant wealth; both approached Moses together to inquire about a shared naĥalah; their territories were inexorably intertwined. Yet their partnership was dominated by one, while the other gradually diminished.
This perhaps reflects the circumstances of the birth of these two firstborns of Leah. Reuben was Leah’s first child of the flesh and Gad was the first child of Leah’s maidservant, his existence due solely to Leah’s wiles. Though not borne by her, he was indeed born because of her.20For the parallel to Rachel and Dan, see “Dan, Son of Bilhah: The Liminal Child” in chapter 8.
Reuben was born when Leah’s position was at its most precarious: “When God saw that Leah was hated, He opened her womb… ” (Genesis 29:31).
She had taken the place of Rachel in the wedding chamber, but then Jacob “took also Rachel, and he loved also Rachel, more than Leah” (29:30). Leah was without the natural love of her husband. Where Rachel was beautiful and mysterious, loved by Jacob at first sight, Leah was the awkward older sister of weak eyes and uncertain aspect. Reuben’s birth was the first step, she felt, in building a solid relationship with her husband (“See? A son! Now my husband will love me!”). Yet this was still a very hesitant step. She needed to add child after child to her arsenal to cement a relationship with Jacob.
Leah’s initial state when she embarked on motherhood was apprehensive and troubled. Her firstborn, Reuben, bore the mark, his personality molded by his heavy sense of responsibility toward her, by his absolute loyalty.21See “Loyalty to Leah” in chapter 1 on Reuben. He, like Leah, was apprehensive. He was uncertain about Jacob, yet desperate for his approval. When he acted against his father, it was through heated impetuousness, rather than cool determination, and he spent the rest of his life attempting to atone.
The case was very different with Gad. Gad was born after Leah had already won a certain acceptance, after a transformation in which Rachel was now “jealous” of her. Gad, for Leah, marked a new stage, a bold initiative that was far from the earlier, anxious new mother. By tricking Jacob into sleeping with Zilpah (or, alternatively, by giving her maidservant as another wife to her consenting husband), she was aggressively and confidently pursuing a new goal: primacy. Gad was a reflection of that mindset, in both his ruthlessness and his courage on the battlefield. His assurance as a leader (“Gad – troop units will fall in line after you!”) was born as Leah’s triumph.
Consider a fascinating detail that surfaced much later in the history of Israel. When King David commanded his general Joab to conduct an ill-advised census, a reluctant Joab attempted to sabotage the order by first approaching the tribe of Gad. The midrash suggests that Joab chose this tribe because he believed that Gad would have no qualms balking at the royal order; they were, after all, the most independent and confident of the tribes (sadly, Gad did submit to the census). Important to our discussion is the notion that this tribe was recognized for their tenacity and pluck – so much so that Joab was certain they would oppose King David’s orders. What an apt reflection of Gad’s origin, whose very existence was owed to his mother’s grit!
Gad and Elijah Ha-Giladi
Gad was perhaps best represented, in all his ambiguous glory, through the figure of his most famous son, the firebrand prophet Elijah:22BR 71:9, 99:11. Other interpretations of the ambiguous tribal classification of this prophet claim that he is from Levi (Bava Metzia 114b) or Benjamin (Tanna de-Vei Eliyahu, 18). “Eliyahu ha-navi, Eliyahu ha-Tishbi, Eliyahu ha-Giladi… ” The prophet Elijah, from Tishbi, which was in Gilead – located in the naĥalah of Gad. Perhaps when she named Gad, Leah dreamed of his most outstanding descendant: “One has arrived [ba] who in the future will sever [gadad] the foundations of evildoers. Who is this? Elijah…R. Nehorai said that Elijah was from the tribe of Gad” (Genesis Rabbah 71:9).
Jacob also recognized this potential:
Salvation will only come from Gad…from he who arrives at the “heel of time” [be-ekev], the end time – as it says, “Behold I am sending you Elijah the Prophet” [Malachi 3:23], who was from the tribe of Gad, for he will herald in the end [ve-hu yugad ekev].
Genesis Rabbah 99:11
Elijah expressed the Gaddite traits of outspokenness and tenacity, for pursuing a goal aggressively and single-mindedly. He did not hesitate to ruthlessly impose his will – even on God23Radak, Malbim on I Kings 17:1. – in order to achieve his vision. In the end, this fierceness separated Elijah from his people. He became incapable of relating to the nation to whom he spoke, and God discharged him from his role as prophet.24I Kings 19:16. Yet this tenacity also earned him eternity and greatness. He rose “in a storm to the heavens,” and eventually became a source of fortune25BR 71:9. and timely protection to Israel.26PRE 50. As the one who vindicated God’s justice, Elijah drew from the blessings of Moses to his ancestor Gad: “And he came at the head of the people; he did what is righteous for the Lord, and what is just for Israel” (Deuteronomy 33:21).
Elijah’s mission during the reign of King Ahab was to restore Israel to love and worship of God and to eradicate the pervasive idolatry so championed by the monarchy. He was hated and hunted by Ahab and Jezebel, and he had to live in hiding. Elijah did not dwell within the nation. He struck in and out of civilization to agitate aggressively for change. He was from the other side, the isolated side – Gilead – yet he led his nation in battle against the worshippers of Baal before retreating. Elijah did come home to Gilead after war for and with his nation,27II Kings 2:6–8. as did his whole tribe in a much earlier time, yet in the end he left for the heavens,28Ibid., 11. to lead at a future time.29Malachi 3:23.
Elijah reflected his tribe in his confident aggressiveness and militant nature. Gad’s territorial isolation, on the other side of the Jordan, also nurtured Elijah’s elusiveness and penchant to appear in fits and spurts among his nation, darting back into concealment after his mission was completed.
Elijah’s seminal encounter with God in the wilderness30I Kings 19:3–18. linked him in the rabbinic mind to the other great prophet – not from the tribe of Gad, but buried in his naĥalah: Moses. This was not a coincidence. Moses, like Elijah, had strong associations with Gad.31For a survey of all parallels drawn in rabbinic literature between Moses and Elijah, see יגאל אריאל, מקדש מלך: עיונים בספר מלכים (חיספין: מדרשת הגולן, 1994), 453–472.
Gad and Moses
The biblical text is full of allusions to a relationship between Moses and the tribe of Gad – Moses indeed inserted himself into the very blessing he bestowed on Gad. It is not surprising that the Sages saw a special affinity between the great prophet, who was barred entry into the land, and those two tribes who chose their portions in the Transjordan.
He [Gad] chose for himself the best,
For there is the hidden portion of the lawgiver,
He who had led the heads of the nation.
He executed the Lord’s judgments
And His decisions for Israel.
Deuteronomy 33:20–2132Translation as per Rashi and Seforno.
Some have argued that Reuben and Gad chose their naĥalot solely to have the honor of having Moses’s eternal resting place on their soil.
“He chose for himself the best” – When Gad chose the lands of Sihon and Og, despite their not having the intrinsic holiness of the Land of Israel, his intention was to acquire for himself something fundamental: the hidden burial place of the lawgiver, Moses.
Seforno, Deuteronomy 33:21
Note that the nation knew that Moses was destined to die before they entered the land; the doom was proclaimed publically prior to Gad and Reuben’s request for naĥalot in the Transjordan.
Perhaps Gad and Reuben had a special relationship to their beloved teacher,33This concept originates with Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Peshischa (as quoted in Sefat Emet פ׳ מטות התר״מ), who understood the verse “ומקנה רב היה לבני ראובן ולבני גד” as intimating that these two tribes had a particular kinyan (possession) in their rav (teacher, i.e., Moshe Rabbenu) – mikneh rav. and so vied for the distinction of hosting his burial plot. This dovetails nicely with the midrash that both tribes shared in the prophet’s final resting place:
“For there [in Gad] is the hidden portion of the lawgiver.” There was the burial place of Moses that was granted to the portion of Gad. But did not [Moses] die in Reuben’s portion [since Nebo is in the naĥalah of Reuben, and it is there that he expired]? From here we learn that Moses was carried on the wings of the Divinity four miles away from Reuben’s portion and interred in Gad’s portion.
Sifrei, Deuteronomy 355, Sotah 13b
If understood in this vein, then the two tribes were not at fault for prematurely requesting their portions rather than waiting patiently for the goral, the divine lottery, nor were they to be blamed for choosing their portions outside of the assumed boundaries of the Promised Land. Neither tribe could countenance leaving Moses eternally abandoned, so they claimed the region in which he died as their own, to remain permanently bound to him, and he to them.
This stretches the plain meaning of the text, though. We are told that the two tribes desired this region for its lush and abundant grazing potential…and for one additional element: “This land that the Lord has conquered for the community of Yisrael is cattle country… ” (Numbers 32:4).
This detail helps explain the risky maneuver undertaken by Reuben and Gad in boldly requesting the Transjordan. These two firstborns of Leah, who were rejected in favor of other tribes (Levi, Judah, Ephraim) for the bestowal of special gifts, felt justified in renouncing protocol so as to claim the territories of Sihon: Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Nebo, among others. The first territorial conquest, resulting in land acquisition and settling of cities,34Numbers 21:24–25. the first active claim of land beyond a defensive war35Ibid., 32. – this territory should have gone to the first of the tribes as its “birthright.” First to the first, and so Reuben and Gad preempted the divine lottery and their portions to the west of the Jordan so as to retain finally some faint association with the lost promises of the bekhorah.
The End of Gad
Gad had more resilience than Reuben, and seemed to have maintained a successful urban structure well into the Israelite kingdom, with a stronger tribal identity than his brother. He was exiled along with Reuben and the half-tribe of Manasseh in the days of Tiglath – Pileser, king of Assyria, in 732 Bce, during their first wave of conquest. The two and a half tribes were carried away to Halah, Habor, Hara, and the River Gozan,36I Chronicles 5:26. Compare II Kings 15:29, 17:1–6, 23. and have been lost to history since.
All was not forgotten of Gad, for we regularly remember one of his own, who surfaces at every circumcision, seder, and conundrum.37Talmudic sessions are regularly peppered with “Teiku!” – interpreted as an acronym for תשבי יתרץ קושיות ובעיות (The Tishbite will solve all hard questions and problems). Elijah is also conjured at sporting matches that end in teiku – a tie. The promise of future glory for the tribe was entrusted to its prized son, Elijah, who is to herald the Messiah, at the end of days: “Lo, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before the coming of the awesome, fearful day of the Lord. He shall reconcile parents with children and children with their parents” (Malachi 3:23).
The tribe of Gad can no longer be identified with confidence, but his character is manifest in the modern-day nation of Israel. Assurance in his mission, military robustness, seeing things through to their end: that was the essence of Gad.
Naĥalat Gad
The southern portion of Gad’s naĥalah as described in Numbers 32 was a circumference of cities buffering Reuben’s land against enemy threat from Moab in the south, Canaan in the west, and Ammon in the northeast. Gad the Protector, who “dwells like a lion,” fiercely protected the outer eastern edges of the Israelite kingdom.
Beyond those buffering cities in the Mishor, Gad received the whole western swath of the Gilead, the mountainous land extending from the Plains of Moab up to the southern banks of the Chinnereth Sea (the eastern part of the Gilead, from the eastern stretch of the Jabbok up to the Yarmuk, belonged to Manasseh38See chapter 13 on Manasseh for detailed discussion of Manasseh’s Transjordan holdings. Ze’ev (Jabbo) Ehrlich posits that all of the Gilead and Jordan Valley west of the watershed line were considered Naĥalat Gad. מזרח הירדן, 15–17.). The term “Gilead” is sometimes a reference for much of the Israelite territory in the Transjordan,39Deuteronomy 3:12–13. Another note on Gilead: The Transjordan’s “isolation from the western tribes is often felt in the biblical stories; however, the constant danger from the desert and the various rival kingdoms stimulated their interest in a united and strong monarchy. For this reason it became a land of refuge for various Israelite kings in times of political crisis” (Aharoni, The Land of the Bible, 36). even though its topographical parameters can be more narrowly defined and do not include the Mishor to the south or the Bashan to the north.
For an itinerary and discussion of touring Naĥalat Gad, see chapter 1 on Reuben.