GACHARD, ga'shile, Louis PROSPER (1800 85). A Belgian archivist and historian. He was born in Paris, removed to Belgium in 1830, and became a Belgian subject in 1831. In the same year he was made keeper of the public records. He was a member of the Belgian Academy, secre tary of the Royal Historical Institution, and president of the Heraldic Bureau. Gachard trav eled extensively in search of documents bearing on Belgian history, and published many authori tative works based on his researches. His prin cipal writings are: Correspondance de Guillaume le Taciturne (1847-58) ; Correspondence de Phi lippe II. sur les affaires des Pays-Bas (1848-59) ; Retraite et mort de Charles-Quint (1854); Rela tion des troubles de (kind sous Charles-Quint (1856) ; Don Carlos et Philippe II. (1863); Actes des Etats-generaux des Pays-Bas (1866); Histoire politique et diplomatique de Pierre-Paul Rubens (1877).
GAD (perhaps an abbreviation of Gaddiel, Gad is god). According to the' biblical account, a son of Jacob and his concubine Zilpah (Gen. xxx. 11), the eponymous ancestor of the tribe of Gad. This tribe was promised land on the eastern side of the Jordan on condition that they should help the other tribes to conquer the territory west of the river (Num. xxxii.). This condition they fulfilled (Joshua i. 12-18, iv. 12), and then settled in their own territory (Joshua xii. 1-9). It may be concluded from this tradition that Gad was a warlike tribe (see I. Chron. xii. 8), and secured
its east-Jordanic settlement through conquest. The territories of the tribe are ill-defined. They lay between the settlements of Reuben on the south and those of Manasseh on the north, but there is a confusion in the biblical accounts, making it hard to determine the boundaries of the three tribes east of the Jordan. There is no literature preserved which originated in this region. When the kingdom was divided in the days of Reho boam, Gad joined Jeroboam and the northern kingdom (I. Kings xii. 20). The tribe was taken captive to Assyria by Tiglathpileser (me. 734), and is heard of no more. The name Gad, like that given to his brother Asher, may have been originally the designation of a deity of good fortune, worshiped in various parts of Palestine. The fact that a Hebrew clan settled in the district which is embraced under the term Gilead in the broader sense is considered as pointing to the cult of this deity as the patron of the clan, whose connection with the other Hebrew tribes was never very close. The district con tained, however, a number of ancient sanctu aries, such as Penuel and Succoth. which must at one time have been places to which pilgrim ages were made. See ASHER ; GILEAD.