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.
xxi. 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 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.
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. 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.'