The term Gilead
refers to the region east of the Jordan River. In this verse the author indicates that by the term Gilead
he is referring only to the land of the Amorites,
which is the land once possessed by the Amorite kingdoms of Heshbon and Bashan, conquered when Moses and the Israelites arrived from Egypt (Numbers 21:21–35). The term Gilead
is more generally used to designate the territory occupied by all the Transjordanian Israelite tribes, Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh (Judges 20:1; 2 Kings 10:33; Jeremiah 50:19; Zechariah 10:10). It is the area of the Transjordan that lies between the Yarmuk and Arnon rivers and divided by the Jabbok River.1
8 and they crushed and oppressed the people of Israel that year. For eighteen years they oppressed all the people of Israel who were beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead.