GILEAD. The Mountains of Gilead which lay eastward of the river Jordan, separated the lands of Ammon, Moab, Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh from Arabia Deserta. Gilead is often put for the whole country which lies beyond Jordan. Eusebius says, that Mount Gilead reached from Libanus northward, as far as the land possessed by Sihon King of the Ammorites, and given to the Tribe of Reuben. This Ridge of Mountains therefore must have been above seventy leagues long from south to north, and included the mountains of Seir and Basan; and perhaps those of the Trachonitis, Auran, and Hermon. Jeremiah seems likewise to say, that Gilead is the beginning of Libanus; Thou art Gilead Jerem. xxii. 6.unto me, and the head of Lebanon. See St. Jerom, and the Interpreters on this place.
Jacob at his return from Mesopotamia came in six days to the Mountains of Gen. xxxi. 21, & seq.Gilead. Laban his father-in-law followed after him, and overtook him while he was incamped there. After some sharp reproaches on both sides, they made a covenant, raised an heap of stones together as a monument of the league, which they had entred into, and gave it, each of them, a name according to the propriety of his language. Laban called it Jegar-Sahadutha, and Jacob, Gal-haed, the heap of witness; from whence came the word Gilead.
As these Mountains were covered with a sort of trees abounding with gum, the Jerem. viii. 21. xlvi. 11. li. 8.Scripture speaks much in commendation of the Balm of Gilead1. The Merchants who bought Joseph, came from Gilead, and were carrying Balm into Egypt.
Read this article in its place on the printed pages
Footnotes
-
Translators’ note. If the Zori of the Hebrew text in Gen. xxxvii. 25. and xliii. 2. be the same with the Balsam of Mecca, it will prove the Balsam-tree to have been in Gilead long before it was planted in the gardens of Jericho, and before the Queen of Sheba brought that root of it to King Solomon, which Josephus mentions. For the Ishmaelites traded with it from Gilead to Egypt, when Joseph was sold to them by his brethren. It seems most likely to me, that the Zori of Gilead, which we render in our English Bible by the word Balm, was not the same with the Balsam of Mecca, but only a better sort of Turpentine then in use for the cure of wounds and other diseases. Prid. Connect. &c. P. ii. B. vi. ↩