GAD: an ancient Semitic diety of good fortune

GAD was one of at least two gods worshipped by the Jews while they were staying in Babylon in addition to their main God (the other one being Meni, the God of fate). Its not necessarily true that they all worshipped him, but this was a very popular deity amonst non-Jews in the area too, and since he was the God of Fortune, it probably seemed like a wise thing to worship him becase they really wanted fortune to smile on them so they could get back to Israel, from which most of the Jews were forced to leave by the Babylonian King Nebuchadrezzar in the 6th Century BCE. Most of us would have thought the most salient aspect of Judaism was monotheism, but this clearly isn't how it started out, or if it did there were many centuries of lapsing back into polytheism. This is why Prophets kept showing up, like Ezekiel and Elijah, to condemn Jews for having lapsed into idolatry. But even these chastisements have to be understood in the context of the many edits that the books that comprise the Bible/Torah, and that in the original they might have had references to deities like Gad. In Isaiah, as a matter of fact, Gad and Meni are mentioned as being deities worshipped by Israelites, but this part is usually left out of most Bible translations. Moses of course was supposed to have gone up to mount Sinai and received the ten commandments from God, and the very first one, the most important, was that the Lord is the only god and there shouldn't be any others worshipped. But this part was surely written after the worship of Gad, the whole book of Exodus may have been written after the events of the Babylonian captivity.

It's also interesting to note that one of the lost tribes of the Israelites was named Gad -- and that these folks were condemned as Israel's enemy in the books of Kings and Samuel. Perhaps they were worshippers of Gad after the return of the Israelites from the last Baylonian captivity (when Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylon and let them come back), whereas the others went whole hog back to monotheism.

Another way that traces of Gad survive even to this day is with my Grandmother, who on occasion has been known to exlaim, "Oh, my Gad!"