Gad, ninth son of Jacob, born of Zilpah, spoke to his sons in the hundred and twenty-fifth year of his life. He had been valiant in keeping the flocks, guarding them at night. When the lion came, or the wolf, or any wild beast, Gad pursued it, seized its foot with his hand, hurled it a stone's throw, and killed it.
Then came the matter of Joseph.
Joseph was feeding the flock with them for thirty days when he fell sick from the heat. He returned to Hebron, where Jacob made him lie down, loving him greatly. But Joseph told their father that the sons of Zilpah and Bilhah were slaying the best of the flock and eating them without the judgment of Reuben and Judah. Gad had, in fact, rescued a lamb from the mouth of a bear and killed the bear, but then slaughtered the lamb because it could not survive its injuries. They ate it. Joseph reported this. Jacob believed him.
"Regarding this matter I was wroth with Joseph until the day he was sold," Gad confessed. "The spirit of hatred was in me. I wished not to hear of Joseph with my ears, nor see him with my eyes, because he rebuked us to our faces."
The hatred went deeper. "I confess now my sin, my children, that often I wished to kill him, because I hated him from my heart. I wished to lick him out of the land of the living, even as an ox licks up the grass of the field." He and Simeon sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites (Genesis 37:28). Only the God of his fathers delivered Joseph from Gad's hands, preventing lawlessness in Israel.
Now Gad delivered his teaching on hatred, and it was devastating.
"Whatever a man does, the hater abhors him. Though a man works the law of the Lord, the hater praises him not. Though a man fears God and takes pleasure in righteousness, the hater loves him not. He dispraises the truth. He envies the one who prospers. He welcomes evil-speaking. He loves arrogance. For hatred blinds the soul."
"Beware of hatred," Gad warned, "for it works lawlessness even against the Lord Himself. It will not hear His commandments concerning loving one's neighbor. If a brother stumbles, hatred immediately proclaims it to all men, and urgently demands he be judged, punished, put to death. Hatred works with envy against those who prosper: so long as it hears of or sees their success, it always languishes."
Then the most striking line: "As love would quicken even the dead and call back those condemned to die, so hatred would slay the living, and those who had sinned only slightly it would not suffer to live." The spirit of hatred works together with the Adversary, through hastiness of spirit, toward men's destruction. But the spirit of love works together with the law of God, in long-suffering, toward the salvation of men.
"Hatred is evil," Gad continued, "for it constantly mates with lying. It makes small things great, calls the light darkness, calls the sweet bitter. It teaches slander, kindles wrath, stirs up war and violence and all covetousness. It fills the heart with evils and devilish poison."
The cure was precise: "Righteousness casts out hatred. Humility destroys envy. For the one who is just and humble is ashamed to do what is unjust, being reproved not by another, but by his own heart, because the Lord looks on his inclination."
Gad learned this through suffering. God brought a disease upon his liver. Had the prayers of Jacob not rescued him, his spirit would have departed. "By what things a man transgresses," Gad said, "by the same also is he punished. Since my liver was set mercilessly against Joseph, in my liver too I suffered mercilessly, and was judged for eleven months, as long as I had been angry against Joseph."
True repentance drives away darkness, enlightens the eyes, gives knowledge to the soul, and leads the mind to salvation. What it has not learned from man, it knows through repentance itself.
"Love each one his brother," Gad urged. "If a man sin against you, cast forth the poison of hate and speak peaceably to him. If he confess and repent, forgive him. If he deny it, do not get into a passion. And if he persists in wrong-doing, even so forgive him from the heart, and leave to God the avenging."
He commanded his sons to honor Judah and Levi, for from them the Lord would raise up salvation for Israel. Then he drew up his feet and fell asleep in peace. After five years, they carried him to Hebron and laid him with his fathers.