GABRIEL ‘ga'bri-e1), (Heb.
the mighty one or hero of God), the heavenly messenger who was sent to Daniel to explain the vision of the ram and the lie-goat (Dan. vii), and to communicate the prediction of the Seventy Weeks (Dan. ix:21-27).
Under the new dispensation lie was employed to announce the birth of John the Baplist to his father Zechariah (Luke 1:11), and that of the Messiah to the Virgin Alary (Luke i :26). Both by Jewish and Christian writers, Gabriel has been denominated an archangel. The scriptures, how ever, affirm nothing positively respecting his rank, though the importance of the commissions on which he was employed, and his own words 'I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God' (Luke i :to), are rather in favor of the notion of his superior dignity. But the reserve of the In spired Volume on such points strikingly distin guishes its angelology from that of the Jews and Mohammedans, and, we may add, of the Fathers and some later Christian writers. In all. the solemn glimpses of the otber world which it gives, a great moral purpose is kept in view. What ever is divulged tends to elevate and refine; noth ing is said to gratify a prurient curiosity.
GAD (gad), (Heb. gawd, fortune).
(1) fhe Seventh Son of Jacob. By his con cubine Zilpah, the handmaid of Leah; so called, to signify that a troop, or good fortune, was com ing (Gen. xxx :9-11). He had seven sons—Ziph ion, Haggai, Shuni, Ebzon, Eri, Arodi, Areli ; all of whom were fathers of numerous families (Gen. xlvi :16; Num. xxvi :15-18). (B. C. 1915.) (2) The Tribe of Gad. When this tribe came out of Egypt, under their prince Eliasaph, the son of Deuel, it amounted to 45,65o; but it de creased 5,150 in the wilderness. Their spy to search the Promised Land was Geuel, the son of Machi (Num. xiii :15). They, along with the Reubenites, petitioned for, and obtained tlneir in heritance from Moses, on the east of Jordan, be :ween the Reubenites on the south and the Manas sites on the north (Deut. xxxii ; xxxiii :2o, 21). Their warriors assisted in conquering Canaan westward of Jordan ; and from 141ount Ebal they gave their assent to the curses of the law (Deut.
xxvii:13; Josh. i:12; iv:12). After seven years they returned to their homes (Josh. xxii). Elever captains of this tribe, swimming through Jordan when high swollen, came to David in the hold, and routed some Arabs, or Philistines, 1,vhom they found in the valley of Jordan ; and great numbers of them attended at David's coronation to be king of Israel 0 Chron. xii :8-15, 37, 38).
The Gadites were a warlike people, and were compelled to be continually armed and on the alert against the inroads of the surrounding Arabian hordes (comp. Gen. xlix :19; Deut. xxxiii :20 ; 1 ChrOrl. V :19, sq.) About the time of Jeroboam 11, they cut off a prodigious number of the Arabian Hagarites, and seized on their cat tle and country (Gen. xlix:19 ; Deut. xxxiii :2o). When Tiglath-pileser transported the Gadites and Reubenites to Assyria, the Ammonites and Mo abites seized on their country (1 Chron. v:18-26; Jer. xlviii :18-24; xlix :1).
(3) The Land of Gad. As a reward for their having formed the vanguard in war of the army of the tribes collectively, they were allowed to appropriate to their exclusive use some pastoral districts beyond the Jordan (Num. xxxii sq.).
The inheritance of this tribe, called the land of Gad (I Sam. xiii :7 ; Jer. was situated beyond the Jordan in Gilead, north of Reuben, and separated on the east from Ammon by the river Jabbok. According to Chron. v 1, the Gadites had extended their possessions on the east as far as Salcah, though the latter had been al lotted by Moses to Manasseh (Dent. iii 13) ; a proof how difficult it is to draw a strong line of demarcation between the possessions of pastoral tribes. The territory of Gad forms a part of the present Belka (Burckhardt, Syria, ii :598).
In Josh. xiii :25, the land of Gad is called 'half the land of the children of Ammon ;' not because the latter were then in possession of it, but proba bly because the part west of the Jabbok had for merly borne that name (comp. Judg. xi :13).