GILEAD (ljhl ; Sept. Pracuiti), a mountain range on the east of the Jordan, extending from the parallel of Rabboth-Ammon on the south, to the river Hieromax on the north. The same name was given to the province lying between these parallels. With the exception of the narrow strip of plain along the bank of the Jordan, the moun tains cover the whole region ; hence it is some times called Mount Gilead' (Deut. iii. 12 ; Jer. 1. 19) ; sometimes 'the Land of Gilead ' (Dem. xxxiv. ; Num. xxxii. 29 ; Zech. x. to) ; and sometimes simply Gilead' (Num. xxxii. zio ; Josh.
xvii. ; Amos i. 3). The inhabitants were called ‘Gileadites ' (Juclg. x. 3 ; 2 Kings xv. 25).
The origin of the name is doubtless to ,he sought for in the physical aspect of the country. The Hebrew like the Arabic signifies hard' or rugged' (Gesenius, Thesaurus ; Frey tag, Lex. Artzb., s. v.) ; and the whole province may be justly termed ljhrl, the rugged.' Some have opposed this view on the ground that a dif ferent etymology is given in Gen. xxxi. 47. But every Oriental scholar will see how easily the two can be reconciled. The orig,inal name of the mountain was 101 ; 'Jacob set his face toward the mount Gilead ' (Gen. xxxi. 21). Laban took him there. They made a covenant. Jacob thereupon raised a heap of stones and called it Galeeei ; that is, the heap,' of witness,' -fp ; thus making the name of the mountain ap ply, by a slight change of pronunciation, to the heap he had erected. Such a play upon words is of common occurrence in the East even yet ; and the Arabs delight in it. The exact site of this Galeed is not known. It could not have been far from Mahanaim. It was doubtless on one of those rounded eminences to the northward, which look the broad plateau of Bashan (Gen. xxxi. 25 ; xxxii. t, 2).
\\re next hear of Gilead on the approach of the Israelites to Palestine. Its rich pastures attracted the attention of the tribes of Reuben and Gad, who had a very great multitude of cattle.' They asked Moses to give them their inheritance there, and he consented (Num. xxxii. 29, sq.) The
Amorites under the rule of Sihon who reigned in Heshbon, then possessed Gilead as far north as the Jabbok (xx.xii. 33, .39; Josh. xii. 3), The northern section, half-Gilead,' as it is called in the Bible, was included with Basilan in the king dom of Og (xii. 6), and was divided between Gad , and Manasseh (GAD). The northern boundary of Gilead is not defined by any ancient writer. All we learn from the Bible is that one half of it was ,1 south, and the other half north of the Jabbok. The features of the country assist us. The mountain range terminates at the river Hieromax. North of it is the plateau of Bashan, the side of which rises about 2500 feet above the deep Jordan val ley, and thus appears from the west like a con tinuation of the Gilead range. Hence the error of Eusebius in stating that the mountains of Gilead joined Lebanon (Onomast., s. v.) Josephus states that the city of Gadara was in Gilead, and Gamala in Gaulanins, a part of Bashan. The former city is only some two miles south of the Hieromax, and the latter about four north (Joseph. Antiq. xiii. 13. 5 ; Vita, 37 ; Bell. yud. iii. 3, 5). We may therefore conclude that the Hieromax se parated the ancient provinces of Gilead and Ba shan. Reland is consequently mistaken when Ile says, 'Initium Basanis ducitur a Machanaim' (Pal. zoo); and Bochart is still more mistaken in his statement—' Basan . . . . regio est trans Jor danem inter tor-mites yabok et Arnan' (Opera, ii. p. 305 ; see this point discussed at length in Kitto's yournal of Sacred Literature for July 1854).
There are two passages of Scripture in which the name Gilead seems to be taken in a wider sense.
Thus, in Deut. xxxiv. t, it is said that when Moses went to the top of I'isgah, the Lord shewed him all the land of Gilead unto Dan ;' yet Gilead, as has been seen, did not reach to within thirty miles of Dan. It is evident that a popular mode of ex pression is here adopted, the name of the principal part being put for the whole. So also in Josh. xx. 8 ; Judg. v. 17, etc.