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If sold to a heathen in Israel, then the Goel had to redeem him; and the reason for this was that all Israelites belonged to God. This was the task of the kinsman-goel. The land belonged to the tribe. Pauperism was thus kept off. There could be no 'submerged tenth. The theocratic reason was, 'the land shall not be sold at all for ever for it is Mine!
These, then, were the main parts of the duty of the Goel, the kinsman- redeemer buying back the alienated land, purchasing the freedom of the man who had voluntarily sold himself as a slave, and avenging the slaying of a kinsman. II. Notice the grand mysterious transference of this office to Jehovah.
I. Let me state briefly the qualifications and offices of the kinsman- redeemer, 'the Goel. The qualifications may be all summed up in one that he must be the nearest blood relation of the person whose Goel he was. He might be brother, or less nearly related, but this was essential, that of all living men, he was the most closely connected.
The very metaphor implies that the divine intervention which he expects is to take place after his death. It was a dead man whose blood the Goel avenged.
So in Psalm xlix. 7, 'None can be Goel to his brother'; verse 15, 'God will be Goel to my soul from the power of the grave. Job xix. 25, 'I know that my Goel liveth.... II. Our Kinsman-Redeemer. The New Testament metaphor of 'Redemption' or buying back with a ransom is distinctly drawn from the Hebrew Goel's office. Christ is the Kinsman.
It is taken by some authorities to come from a word meaning 'to set free. But a consideration of the offices which the law prescribed for the 'Goel' is of more value for understanding the peculiar force of the metaphor in such a text as this, than any examination of the original meaning of the word.
Blood feuds were thus checked, though not abolished. The remarkable institution of 'cities of refuge' gave opportunity for deliberate investigation into each case. If wilful murder was proved, the murderer was given up to the Goel for retribution; if death had been by misadventure, the slayer was kept in the city of refuge till the high-priest's decease.
The paradox of buying back without buying is a symbol of the Christian redemption. A price has been paid. 'Ye were redeemed not with corruptible things as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ. The New Testament idea of redemption, no doubt, has its roots in the Old Testament provisions for the Goel or kinsman redeemer, who was to procure the freedom of a kinsman.
This is the germ of the figure of the Redeemer-Kinsman in later Scripture. Notice how higher ideas began to gather round the office. The prophets felt that in some way God was their 'Goel. In Isaiah the application of the name to Him is frequent and, we might almost say, habitual.
And the divine law was shaped in accordance with that truth. Therefore the goel, or kinsman-avenger of blood, was not only permitted but enjoined by Moses. But the evils inherent in his existence were great. Blood feuds were handed down through generations, involving an ever-increasing number of innocent people, and finally leading to more murders than they prevented.
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