GABAEL

GABAEL.— 1. A distant ancestor of Tobit (To 1>). 2. A friend and kinsman of Tobit. residing at Rages In Media. To him Tobit, when purveyor to the king of Assyria, once entrusted, as a deposit, 10 talents of silver (To 1»). When blindness and poverty came on Tobit in Nineveh, he recollected, after prayer, the long-forgotten treasure (To 4'), and wished his son Tobias to fetch it (v.»). Tobias found a guide, Raphael in disguise, who said he had lodged with Gabael (To 5'). When Tobias married Sarah in Ecbatana, he sent Raphael for the deposit (9=).

GABATHA. — One of two eunuchs whose plot against Artaxerxes (the Ahasuerus, i.e. Xerxes, of canonical Est.) was discovered and frustrated by Mardocheus (Mordecai). Ad. Est 12>. In Est 2^' he is called Bigthan and in 6' Bigthana.

GABBAI.— A Benjamlte (Neh 11«, but text doubtful).

GABBATHA (Jn 19").— The meaning of this word is most uncertain; possibly 'height' or 'ridge.' It is used as the Heb. or Aramaic equivalent of the Gr. lithostrston or 'pavement.' There is no mention in any other place of either Gabbatha or 'the Pavement.' That it was, as has been suggested, a portable tessellated pavement such as Julius Csesar is said to have carried about with him, seems highly improbable. Tradition has identified as Gabbatha an extensive sheet of Roman pavement recently excavated near the Ecce Homo Arch. It certainly covered a large area, and the blocks of stone composing it are massive, the average size being 4 ft. X 3 ft. 6 in. and nearly 2 ft. thick. The pavement is in parts roughened for the passage of animals and chariots, but over most of the area it Is smooth. The paved area was on a lofty place, the ground rapidly falling to east and west, and was in close proximity to, if not actually included within, the Antonia.

E. W. G. Masterman.

GABBE (1 Es 52°).— In Ezr 2" Geba.

GABRIAS. — The brother of the Gabael to whom Tobit entrusted 10 talents of silver (To 1"; in 42" AV and RV wrongly tr. 'Gabael the son of Gabrias').

GABRIEL ('man of God'). — In the first rank of the innumerable hosts of the heavenly hierarchy (Dn 7'°) there are seven who occupy the first place — the seven archangels; of these Gabriel is one. In Dn 8"«- Gabriel is sent to explain to Daniel the meaning of the vision of the ram and the he-goat; in 9^'''- he tells Daniel of the seventy weeks which are ' decreed ' upon the people and the holy city. This is the only mention of Gabriel in the OT. In post-BibUcal literature the name occurs more frequently. He appears twice in the NT as God's messenger. He is sent to announce to Zacharias that Elisabeth will bear a son; he also tells the name that the child is to bear (Lk l"-''). In Lk !'>-'<' he appears to the Virgin Mary and announces the birth of a son to her; here again he says what the name of the child is to be: 'Thou shalt call his name Jesus.'

In the Babylonian and Persian angelologies there are analogies to the seven archangels of the Jews, and the possibility of Jewish beUef having been influenced by these must not be lost sight of. W. O. E. Oestbhley.

GAD ('fortunate').— Gn 30«- (J), 35« (P); the first son of Zilpah, Leah's handmaid, by Jacob, and fuU brother of Asher ('Happy'). This like other of the tribal names, e.g. Dan, Asher, is very probably, despite this popular etymology, the name of a deity (cf . Is 65", where AV renders ' troop ' but RV ' Fortune ' ) . Another semi-etymology or, better, paronomasia (Gn 49") connects the name of the tribe with its warlike experiences and characteristics, taking note only of this feature of the tribal life:

gddh gedhudk yeghudhennu viehu' ydghudh 'dgebh: 'As for Gad, plunderers shall plunder him. And he shall plunder in the rear' (i.e. effect reprisals and plunder in return).

GAD

In the Blessing of Moses (Dt 33™) Gad is compared to a lioness that teareth the arm and the crown of the head, and later (1 Ch 12'' ») the Gadites who joined David are described as leonine in appearance and incomparable in combat: 'Their faces are as the faces of lions, the smallest is equal to a hundred and the greatest to a thousand.'

Upon the genetic relations of Gad and Asher the genealogy throws no light, for the fact that Gad and Asher, as it appears, were names of related divinities of Good Fortune would be sufficient ground for uniting them; but why they should have been brought together under the name of Zilpah is not to be conjectured with any certainty. Leah, unlike Rachel, who was barren until after her maid had brought forth to Jacob, had already borne four sons before Zilpah was called in to help her infirmity.

It appears that Gad, notwithstanding the genealogy, was a late tribe. In the Song of Deborah it is not even mentioned. Gilead there takes its place, but Mesha (9th cent.) knows the inhabitants of Gilead as the ' men of Gad.'

The families of Gad are given by P in Gn 46" and Nu 26"«-. 1 Ch S'"- repeats them with variations. In the Sinai census P gives 46,650 men of war. By the time they had reached the Wilderness they had decreased to 40,500. Their position on the march through the desert is variously given in Numbers as 3rd, 6th, 11th.

Nu 32«-» (P) gives eight towns lying within the territory of Gad. The most southerly, Aroer, lay upon the Arnon; the most northerly, Jogbehah, not far from the Jabbok. Ataroth, another of these towns, is men-tioned on the Moabite stone (1. 10), and the 'men of Gad' are there said to have dwelt within it 'from of old .' Within this region, and clustering about Heshbon, P gives six cities to the Reubenites, But in Jos 13'5"' Reuben has all to the south of Heshbon, and Gad all to the north of it. Owing to the divergent statements in the Hexateuch and the historical books, it is quite impossible to say what the northern boundary was. In any case it was not a stable one.

The reason assigned by the traditions for the settle-ment of Gad and Reuben in Gilead is that they were pastoral tribes, with large herds and flocks, and that they found the land pre-eminently adapted to, their needs. They, therefore, obtained from Moses per-mission to settle on the east side of Jordan after they had first crossed the river and helped the other tribes in the work of conquest (see Nu 32 and Dt 3"-2»).

After the conquest, in the time of the Judges, the people of Gilead were overrun by the Ammonites until Jephthah finally wrought their deliverance. In David's confiicts with Saul, the Gadites and other eastern tribes came to his assistance. As the Mesha stone shows, they had probably at that time absorbed the Reubenites, who had been more exposed previously to Moabite attacks, which at this time fell more directly upon Gad. When the northern tribes revolted, Jeroboam must have found the Gadites among his staunchest supporters, for it was to Penuel in Gadite territory that he moved the capital from Shechem in Ephraim (1 K 12^).

In 734 the Gadites with their kinsmen of the East Jordan, Galilee and Naphtali, were carried captive by Tiglath-pileser iii. when Ahaz in his perplexity ventured upon the bold alternative of appealing to him for assist-ance against the powerful confederation of Syrians, Israelites, and Edomites who had leagued together to dethrone him (1 K 15", 2 Ch 28i»«). It was cleariy a case of Scylla and Charybdis for Ahaz. It was fatal for Gad. See also Thibes op Iskael.

James A. Cbaiq.

GAD. — A god whose name appears in Gn 30" ('by the help of Gad'; so in v.is 'by the help of Asherah'); in the place-names Baal-gad, and Migdal-gad (Jos 11" 12' 13' 15^'); and in the personal name Azgad

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