Gad (, ) was a seer or

prophet In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings from the s ...

mentioned in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Josephus Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for '' The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly ...

. He was one of the personal prophets of King David of

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

and, according to the

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...

ic tradition, some of his writings are believed to be included in the

Books of Samuel The Book of Samuel (, ''Sefer Shmuel'') is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Samuel) in the Old Testament. The book is part of the narrative history of Ancient Israel called the Deuteronomistic history, a series of books (Josh ...

. He is first mentioned in telling David to return from refuge in Moab to the forest of

Hereth This is a list of places mentioned in the Bible, which do not have their own Wikipedia articles. See also the list of biblical places for locations which do have their own article. A Abana Abana, according to 2 Kings 5:12, was one of the " rive ...

in the land of Judah. The next biblical reference to Gad is () where, after David confesses his sin of taking a

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses in ...

of the people of Israel and Judah, God sends Gad to David to offer him a choice of three forms of punishment. Gad is mentioned a final time in the

in , coming to David and telling him to build an altar to God after God stops the plague that David had chosen as punishment. The place indicated by Gad for the altar is "in the

threshing-floor Threshing (thrashing) was originally "to tramp or stamp heavily with the feet" and was later applied to the act of separating out grain by the feet of people or oxen and still later with the use of a flail. A threshing floor is of two main type ...

Araunah Araunah (Hebrew: ''’Ǎrawnā'') was a Jebusite mentioned in the Second Book of Samuel, who owned the threshing floor on Mount Moriah which David purchased and used as the site for assembling an altar to God. The First Book of Chronicles, a la ...

the Jebusite". tells of an encounter Gad had with the

angel of the Lord The (or an) angel of the ( he, מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה '' mal’āḵ YHWH'' "messenger of Yahweh") is an entity appearing repeatedly in the Tanakh (Old Testament) on behalf of the God of Israel. The guessed term ''YHWH'', which occurs ...

. A tomb attributed to Gad is located at

Halhul Halhul ( ar, حلحول, transliteration: ''Ḥalḥūl'') is a Palestinian city located in the southern West Bank, north of Hebron in the Hebron Governorate of the State of Palestine. The town, bordered by Sa'ir and Ash-Shuyukh to the east, ...

.''Burial Places of the Fathers'', published by Yehuda Levi Nahum in book: ''Ṣohar la-ḥasifat ginzei teiman'' (Heb. צהר לחשיפת גנזי תימן), Tel-Aviv 1986, p. 253 (Hebrew)

The Chronicles of Gad the seer

The words, or chronicle, of Gad the seer are mentioned in and are generally considered a lost text.

References

11th-century BCE Hebrew people Angelic visionaries