The strength of the family tie in the Israelitish polity was great. The family was the unit--hence there were certain duties devolving on the nearest male relative. These, so far as we are at present concerned, were three.
(a) The redemption of a slave. The Mosaic legislation about slavery was very remarkable. It did not nominally prohibit it, but it fenced it round and modified it, so as to make it another thing.
Israelites were allowed to hold Gentile slaves, but under careful restrictions. Israelites were allowed to sell themselves as slaves. If the sale was to Israelites, the slavery was ended in six years or at the jubilee, whichever period came first--unless the slave had his ear bored to the doorpost to intimate his contentment in service (Exod. 21:5-6). This is not slavery in our sense of the word, but only a six years' engagement. 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.
(b) The redemption of an inheritance.
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!'
(c) The avenging of murder. Blood feuds were thus checked, though not abolished. The remarkable institution of cities of refuge' gave opportunity for deliberate investigation into each case. If willful 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.
This is the germ of (he 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. So in Psalm 49:7, None can be Goel to his brother'; verse 15, God will be Goel to my soul from the power of the grave.' Job 19:25, I know that my Goel liveth…
