Gad and Meni

Isaiah 65:11

Isaiah 65:11, in every translation this tool compares.

First, in plain English

Fortune and Destiny, with a table laid for them and wine poured out. Most readers walk past them because English versions turn the two names back into common nouns. The Greek translators read both as real gods.

What the text says

Fortune and Destiny, with a table spread and mixed wine poured for them. The Vulgate keeps only Gad as a proper name and translates Meni away. The LXX renders Gad as daimonion and Meni as Tyche, so its translators read both as real deities.

The word

H1409, H4507, 1 occ each as deities

Ancient Near Eastern background

Gad is well attested outside Israel as a minor deity of fortune, equated with the Greek Tyche and the Latin Fortuna. Punic inscriptions from Sardinia and Ibiza pair Gad with the goddess Tanit, and Palmyrene inscriptions use "Gad" as the title of a city's own guardian spirit. Meni's Arabian counterpart is better attested still: the goddess Manat, one of the three "daughters of Allah" named in the Qur'an (53:19-20) with al-Lat and al-Uzza, appears as "Manutu" in Nabatean curse inscriptions of the first centuries BC and AD, and medieval Jewish commentators already tied Meni's name to the verb "to count, to apportion," that is, to assign a fate.

Where it appears

Isaiah 65:11

Sources

DDD s.v. "Gad," 339-340
DDD s.v. "Meni," 567