In the Bible "Gilead" means hill of testimony or mound of witness, (Genesis 31:21), a mountainous region east of the Jordan River, situated in the Kingdom of Jordan. It is also referred to by the Aramaic name Yegar-Sahadutha, which carries the same meaning as the Hebrew (Genesis 31:47). From its mountainous character it is called "the mount of Gilead" (Genesis 31:25). It is called also "the land of Gilead" (Numbers 32:1), and sometimes simply "Gilead" (Ps. 60:7; Genesis|37:25). As a whole, it included the tribal territories of Gad, Reuben, and the eastern half of Manasseh (Deut 3:13; Num 32:40). It was bounded on the north by Bashan, and on the south by Moab and Ammon (Genesis 31:21; Deut 3:12-17). "Half Gilead" was possessed by Sihon, and the other half, separated from it by the river Jabbok, by Og, king of Bashan. The deep ravine of the river Hieromax (the modern Sheriat el-Mandhur) separated Bashan from Gilead, which was about 60 miles in length and 20 in breadth, extending from near the south end of the Lake of Gennesaret to the north end of the Dead Sea. Abarim, Pisgah, Nebo, and Peor are its mountains mentioned in Scripture.
In the Bible, Gilead or Galaad (Hebrew: גִּלְעָד, "Heap/mass of testimony/witness", Standard Hebrew Gilʻad, Tiberian Hebrew Gilʻāḏ; Latin: Galaad) is the name of three persons and two geographic places. Gilead is divided among the tribes of Gad and Mannaseh.
Specifically, it may refer to:
The Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible) repeatedly mentions a "balm in Gilead" or "balm of Gilead," references and symbolism which have appeared repeatedly in Western culture, see Balsam of Mecca.
"There Is A Balm in Gilead" is a traditional United States African-American spiritual.
In Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven," the speaker asks the spectral bird: "Is there balm in Gilead? Tell me truly I implore."
Balm in Gilead, American dramatist Lanford Wilson's first full-length play, centers on a café frequented by heroin addicts, prostitutes, and thieves.
In the novel The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, the United States has been replaced by a theocratic totalitarian nation, the "Republic of Gilead."
In Stephen King's Dark Tower novels, the protagonist, Roland Deschain, hails from a kingdom called Gilead, which was destroyed by agents of the Crimson King.
In Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle, Gil'ead is a location through which Eragon travels.
Gilead is also the title of the 2004 award-winning novel (2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award) by American writer Marilynne Robinson.
The 1996 film The Spitfire Grill, a story of a young woman's transformation of a community and redemption of her own and her fellow townpersons' past, is set in the small town of Gilead, Maine. The 2001 musical of the same name set Gilead in Wisconsin, perhaps due to its premiere in Milwaukee.
The song “Balsam in Gilead”, based on Jeremiah 8:22[1], was included in Jehovah's Witnesses' 1984 hymnbook "Sing Praises to Jehovah". The lyrics mention God's provisions for comforting, and also encourage being a comfort to others. Moreover, their missionary training school is named the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead.
GILEAD (i.e. "hard" or "rugged," a name sometimes used, both in earlier and in later writers, to denote the whole of the territory occupied by the Israelites eastward of Jordan, extending from the Arnon to the southern base of Hermon (Deut. xxxiv. I; Judg. xx. 1; Jos. Ant. xii. 8.3, 4). More precisely, however, it was the usual name of that picturesque hill country which is bounded on the N by the Hieromax (Yarmuk), on the W. by the Jordan, on the S. by the Arnon, and on the E. by a line which may be said to follow the meridian of Amman (Philadelphia or Rabbath-Ammon). It thus lies wholly within 31° 25' and 32° 42' N. lat. and 35° 34' and 36° E. long., and is cut in two by the Jabbok. Excluding the narrow strip of low-lying plain along the Jordan, it has an average elevation of 2500 ft. above the Mediterranean; but, as seen from the west, the relative height is very much increased by the depression of the Jordan valley. The range from the same point of view presents a singularly uniform outline, having the appearance of an unbroken wall; in reality, however, it is traversed by a number of deep ravines (wadis), of which the most important are the Yabis, the Ajlun, the Rajib, the Zerka (Jabbok), the Hesban, and the Zerka Ma`in. The .great mass of the Gilead range is formed of Jura limestone, the base slopes being sandstone partly covered by white marls. The eastern slopes are comparatively bare of trees; but the western are well supplied with oak, terebinth and pine. The pastures are everywhere luxuriant, and the wooded heights and winding glens, in which the tangled shrubbery is here and there broken up by open glades and flat meadows of green turf, exhibit a beauty of vegetation such as is hardly to be seen in any other district of Palestine.
The first biblical mention of "Mount Gilead" occurs in connexion with the reconcilement of Jacob and Laban (Genesis xxxi.). The composite nature of the story makes an identification of the exact site difficult, but one of the narrators (E) seems to have in. hind the ridge of what is now known as Jebel Ajlun, probably not far from Mahneh (Mahanaim), near the head of the wadi Yabis. Some investigators incline to Suf, or to the Jebel Kafkafa. At the period of the Israelite conquest the portion of Gilead northward of the Jabbok (Zerka) belonged to the dominions of Og, king of Bashan, while the southern half was ruled by Sihon, king of the Amorites, having been at an earlier date wrested from Moab (Numb. xxi. 24; Deut. 111.12-16). These two sections were allotted respectively to Manasseh and to Reuben and Gad, both districts being peculiarly suited to the pastoral and nomadic character of these tribes. A somewhat wild Bedouin disposition, fostered by their surroundings, was retained by the Israelite in habitants of Gilead to a late period of their history, and seems to be to some extent discernible in what we read alike of Jephthah, of David's Gadites, and of the prophet Elijah. As the eastern frontier of Palestine, Gilead bore the first brunt of Syrian and Assyrian attacks.
After the close of the Old Testament history the word Gilead seldom occurs. It seems to have soon passed out of use as a precise geographical designation; for though occasionally mentioned by Apocryphal writers, by Josephus, and by Eusebius, the allusions are all vague, and show that those who made them had no definite knowledge of Gilead proper. In Josephus and the New Testament the name Peraea or ripav Tou 'Iopbavou is most frequently used; and the country is sometimes spoken of by Josephus as divided into small provinces called after the capitals in which Greek colonists had established themselves during the reign of the Seleucidae. At present Gilead south of the Jabbok alone is known by the name of Jebel Jilad (Mount Gilead), the northern portion between the Jabbok and the Yarmuk being called Jebel Ajlun. Jebel Jilad includes Jebel Osha, and has for its capital the town of Es-Salt. The cities of Gilead expressly mentioned in the Old Testament are Ramoth, Jabesh and Jazer. The first of these has been variously identified with Es-Salt, with Reimun, with Jerash or Gerasa, with er-Remtha, and with *alb ad. Opinions are also divided on the question of its identity with Mizpeh-Gilead (see Encyc. Biblica, art. "Ramoth-Gilead"). Jabesh is perhaps to be found at Meriamin, less probably at ed-Deir; Jazer, at Yajuz near Jogbehah, rather than at Sar. The city named Gilead (Judg. x. 17, xii. 7; Hos. vi. 8, xii. 11) has hardly been satisfactorily explained; perhaps the text has suffered.
The "balm" (Heb. sori) for which Gilead was so noted (Gen. xlvii. II; Jer. viii. 22, xlvi. II; Ezek. xxvii. 17), is probably to be identified with mastic (Gen. xxxvii. 25, R.V. marg.) i.e. the resin yielded by the Pistachia Lentiscus. The .modern "balm of Gilead" or "Mecca balsam," an aromatic gum produced by the Balsamodendron opobalsamum, is more likely the Hebrew mor, which the English Bible wrongly renders "myrrh." See G. A. Smith, Hist. Geog. xxiv. foil. (R. A. S. M.)
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Meaning: hill of testimony
(Gen 31:21), a mountainous region east of Jordan. From its mountainous character it is called "the mount of Gilead" (Gen 31:25). It is called also "the land of Gilead" (Num 32:1), and sometimes simply "Gilead" (Ps 607; Gen 37:25). It comprised the possessions of the tribes of Gad and Reuben and the south part of Manasseh (Deut 3:13; Num 32:40). It was bounded on the north by Bashan, and on the south by Moab and Ammon (Gen 31:21; Deut 3:12ff). "Half Gilead" was possessed by Sihon, and the other half, separated from it by the river Jabbok, by Og, king of Bashan. The deep ravine of the river Hieromax (the modern Sheriat el-Mandhur) separated Bashan from Gilead, which was about 60 miles in length and 20 in breadth, extending from near the south end of the Lake of Gennesaret to the north end of the Dead Sea. Abarim, Pisgah, Nebo, and Peor are its mountains mentioned in Scripture.
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