The Gadites were devotedly attached to both Saul and David. Some of their mighty men fol lowed the fortunes of the latter in their darkest period—mcn of whom it is said that they were men of war for the battle, that could handle shield and buckler, whose faces were the faces of lions, and who were swift as the roes upon the moun tains' (1 Chron. xii. S). The taking down the bodies of Saul and Jonathan from the battlements of Betlishean was an act of noble daring and grateful recompense. Among the Gadites David afterwards found an asylum when he fled from Absalom ; and in their territory the battle was fought which regained him his throne (2 Sam. xvit, xviii.) The Gadites suffered much during the ascendancy of the warlike monarchs of Damascus. At length the whole country was overrun by the armies of Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, and the people carried away captive (2 Kings xv. 29). Soon afterwards the Ammonites appear to have taken possession of the land ; and Jeremiah was then commissioned to pronounce that prophetic doom which we now see so fearfully executed on the cities and villages of Gilead (Jen xlix. 1, seq.) In addition to those already named, the following works may be consulted—Reland, p. 162, seq. ; Stanley, Sin. and p. 319 ; Kalisch on Gen. xlix. 19 ; Handbook for Syr. and Pal., 295, 308, seq. ; Burckhardt, TraVelS 1.12 .Syria, 345, seq. ; Irby and Mangles' Travels.—J. L. P.
2. A prophet contemporary with David, and probably a pupil of Samuel, who early attached himself to the son of Jesse (I Sam. xxii. 5). In stances of his prophetic intercourse with David occur in 2 Sam. xxiv. seq. ; Chron. xxi. 9, seq. ; 2 Chron. xxix. 25. Gad wrote a history oi the reign of David, to which the author of the Second Book of Samuel seems to refer for furthcr informa tion respecting that reig,n (1 Chron. xxix. 29), B.C. ro62-ror 7.
GAD ("0 ; Sept. 3a.L,u6p,or, or, according to the reading of Jerome and of some MSS., ri4n) is mentioned in Is. lxv. II. The word admits of
two different significations. If it be derived from in the sense of to cut, it may mean a lot, and, by a combination with the Arabic which means to be new, to occur, to be fortunate, may be legitimately taken to denotefortune. Indeed, some find this fortune,' although not as an idol, in Gen. xxx. t, where the Sept. has rendered the Kethib by rOxv, which is approved by Selden, and especially by Tuch, who does not even wish to change the punctuation, but ascribes the Qametz to the influence of the pause (Comment. fiber die Genesis, ad loc.) This is the sense in which Ges enius, Hitzig, and Ewald have taken Gad in their respective versions of Isaiah. All render the clause, who spread a table to Fortune.' This view, which is the general one, makes Fortune in this passage to be an object of idolatrous worship. There is great disagreement, however, as to the power of nature which this name was intended to denote ; and, from the scanty data, there is little else than mere opinion on the subject. The majo rity, among whom are some of the chief rabbinical commentators, as well as Gesenius, Miinter, and Ewald, consider Gad to be the form under which the planet Jupiter was worshipped as the greater star of good fortune (see especially Gesenius, Com ment. iiber den lesaia, ad loc.) Others, among whom is Vitringa, suppose Gad to have repre sented the Sun ; and Movers, the latest writer of any eminence on Syro-Arabian idolatry, takes it to have been the planet Venus (Die Phonizier, 65o).
On the other hand, if Gad be derived from 1'n in the 'sense of to press, to crowd, it may mean a hvop, a heap (to which sense there is an allusion in Gen. xlix. 19) ; and IIoheisel, as cited in Rosen miiller's Scholia, ad loc., as well as Deyling, in his Observat. p. 673, have each attempted a mode by which the passage might be explained, if Cad and Heni were taken in the sense of trooy5 and number.—J. N.