And Leah said, A troop cometh: and she called his name Gad.
Leah at the birth named the newborn Gad, her words and his name declaring that a troop or company had come, a troop or multitude. The child so named was a son born to Jacob through Zilpah, Leah's handmaid. His birth was one of the sons born to Jacob in the land of the children of the East while he served Laban fourteen years for his two daughters, in the period between the morning after his dream at Bethel and his return to the land of Canaan, when God prospered Jacob in flocks and herds despite Laban's efforts to deprive him of his right.
Gad was free and equal with Jacob's other sons, recognized as one of Jacob's sons sharing in the family inheritance and his father's property and becoming a head of a tribe in Israel, so that his mother's status as a handmaid did not make him a slave and the handmaids' children were not treated as chattel. The verse falls within the account of Jacob's troubled and unsatisfactory experiences, including his selfish schemes and the suffering that followed, in which God's providence brings retribution sooner or later. The verse belongs to the history of Jacob's polygamous family and proves that polygamy caused very great unhappiness in every family where it entered, showing that polygamy was never anything but evil and wrong.
Genesis 30, including this verse, is among the examples of patriarchal violations of the marriage institution. Such violations did not undo or diminish marriage's sacred character. That sacred character was established before the fall, and just as violations of marriage did not undo it, so violations of the Sabbath did not undo the Sabbath's sacred character. The verse illustrates the abundance of God's mercies, that his blessings come not singly but as a multitude.
Leah at the birth named the newborn Gad, her words and his name declaring that a troop or company had come, a troop or multitude. The child so named was a son born to Jacob through Zilpah, Leah's handmaid. His birth was one of the sons born to Jacob in the land of the children of the East while he served Laban fourteen years for his two daughters, in the period between the morning after his dream at Bethel and his return to the land of Canaan, when God prospered Jacob in flocks and herds despite Laban's efforts to deprive him of his right.
Gad was free and equal with Jacob's other sons, recognized as one of Jacob's sons sharing in the family inheritance and his father's property and becoming a head of a tribe in Israel, so that his mother's status as a handmaid did not make him a slave and the handmaids' children were not treated as chattel. The verse falls within the account of Jacob's troubled and unsatisfactory experiences, including his selfish schemes and the suffering that followed, in which God's providence brings retribution sooner or later. The verse belongs to the history of Jacob's polygamous family and proves that polygamy caused very great unhappiness in every family where it entered, showing that polygamy was never anything but evil and wrong.
Genesis 30, including this verse, is among the examples of patriarchal violations of the marriage institution. Such violations did not undo or diminish marriage's sacred character. That sacred character was established before the fall, and just as violations of marriage did not undo it, so violations of the Sabbath did not undo the Sabbath's sacred character. The verse illustrates the abundance of God's mercies, that his blessings come not singly but as a multitude.