- Galilee
- The northern part of Palestine, specifically the territories north and west of the Sea of Galilee.
- Galut
- (Hebrew for "exile") The term refers to the various expulsions of Jews from the ancestral homeland; over time, it came to express the broader notion of Jewish homelessness and state of being aliens; thus, colloquially, "to be in galut" means to live in the diaspora and also to be in a state of physical and even spiritual alienation.
- Gemara
- (Hebrew for "completion") Popularly applied to the Jewish Talmud as a whole, to discussions by rabbinic teachers on Mishnah, and to decisions reached in these discussions; in a more restricted sense, it applies to the work of the generations of the Amoraim from the third through the fifth centuries C.E. in "completing" Mishnah to produce the Talmuds.
- Genealogy
- A list or family tree of ancestors or descendants; the Priestly history and the Chronicler's history contain extensive genealogies. See Chapter 1.
- Generation
- A group of people born and living at about the same time, usually reckoned as forty years in the Old Testament; grandparents, parents, and children are three generations.
- Genre
- The term used by literary critics as the equivalent of "type of literature"; the basic genres found in the Hebrew Bible are prose and poetry, with many different sub-types including song, hymn, story, saying, speech, law, genealogy, saga, history. See Introduction.
- Gentiles
- (Hebrew goyyim) In pre-Christian times, non-Jewish peoples; thereafter, non-Jewish and non-Christian (roughly synonymous with "pagan").
- Gibeon
- A village north of Jerusalem which tricked Joshua and the Israelites into making a treaty with them. See Chapter 6.
- Gideon
- A judge who delivered the Israelites from the tyrrany of the Midianites. See Chapter 7.
- Gilgal
- A village near Jericho where the Israelites first stopped after they entered the Promised Land. See Chapter 6.
- Gilgamesh epic
- A Babylonian epic centering on Gilgamesh, ancient king of Uruk; the eleventh tablet of this epic contains a story of a flood that has parallels to the biblical story of Noah and the ark. See Chapter 1.
- Glory of Yahweh
- The revelation of God's being, nature, and presence to humankind, often through physical or meteorological phenomena. See Chapter 12.
- God
- The supreme divine being, called Elohim by the Israelites, who was also known as Yahweh.
- Gog
- An eschataological figure, a personification of evil, that battled God's forces in Ezekiel 38-39. See Chapter 12.
- Golden calf
- A statue constructed by Aaron at Mount Sinai that the Israelites worshiped; Jeroboam, first king of Israel, built golden calf shrines at Bethel and Dan. See Chapter 3.
- Goliath
- The Philistine giant who was killed by David. See Chapter 8.
- Gomer
- The wife of Hosea the prophet who turned out to be unfaithful to their marriage. See Chapter 13.
- Goshen
- The territory in the eastern Nile delta of Egypt where Joseph settled the family of Jacob.
- Grace
- An undeserved gift or favor; the undeserved attention, forgiveness, kindness and mercy that God gives.