'Their Redeemer is strong; the Lord of Hosts is His name: He shall
thoroughly plead their cause.'--JER. l. 34.
Among the remarkable provisions of the Mosaic law there were some very
peculiar ones affecting the next-of-kin. The nearest living blood
relation to a man had certain obligations and offices to discharge,
under certain contingencies, in respect of which he received a special
name; which is sometimes translated in the Old Testament 'Redeemer,'
and sometimes 'Avenger' of blood. What the etymological signification
of the word may be is, perhaps, somewhat doubtful. 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. Jehovah is represented as having taken upon Himself the
functions of the next-of-kin, and is the Kinsman-Redeemer of His
people. The same thought recurs frequently in the Old Testament,
especially in the second half of the prophecies of Isaiah, and it were
much to be desired that the Revised Version had adopted some means of
showing an English reader the instances, since the expression suggests
a very interesting and pathetic view of God's relation to His people.
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. That qualification has
to be kept well in mind when thinking of the transference of the office
to God in His relation to Israel, and through Israel to us.
Such being his qualification, what were his duties? Mainly three. The
first was connected with property, and is thus stated in the words of
the law, 'If thy brother be waxen poor, and sell some of his
possession, then shall his _kinsman_ that is next unto him come, and
shall redeem that which his brother hath sold' (Lev. xxv. 25, R. V.).
The Mosaic law was very jealous of large estates. The prophet
pronounced a curse upon those who joined 'land to land, and field to
field... that they may be alone in the midst of the earth.' One great
purpose steadily kept in view in all the Mosaic land-laws was the
prevention of the alienation of the land from its original holders, and
of its accumulation in a few hands. The idea underlying the law was
that of the tribal or family ownership--or rather occupancy, for God
was the owner and Israel but a tenant--and not individual possession.
That thought carries us back to a social state long since passed away,
but of which traces are still left even among ourselves. It was carried
out thoroughly in the law of Moses, however imperfectly in actual
practice. The singular institution of the year of Jubilee operated,
among other effects, to check the acquisition of large estates. It
provided that land which had been alienated was to revert to its
original occupants, and so, in substance, prohibited purchase and
permitted only the lease of land for a maximum term of fifty years. We
do not know how far its enactments were a dead letter, but their spirit
and intention were obviously to secure the land of the tribe to the
tribe for ever, to keep the territory of each distinct, to discourage
the creation of a landowning class, with its consequent landless class,
to prevent the extremes of poverty and wealth, and to perpetuate a
diffused, and nearly uniform, modest wellbeing amongst a pastoral and
agricultural community, and to keep all in mind that the land was 'not
to be sold for ever, for it is Mine,' saith the Lord.
The obligation on the next-of-kin to buy back alienated property was
quite as much imposed on him for the sake of the family as of the
individual.
The second of his duties was to buy back a member of his family fallen
into slavery. 'If a stranger or sojourner with thee be waxen rich, and
thy brother be waxen poor beside him, and sell himself unto the
stranger... after that he is sold, he may be redeemed; one of his
brethren may redeem him.' The price was to vary according to the time
which had to elapse before the year of Jubilee, when all slaves were
necessarily set free. So Hebrew slavery was entirely unlike the thing
called by the same name in other countries, and by virtue of this power
of purchase at any time, which was vested in the nearest relative,
taken along with the compulsory manumission of all 'slaves' every
fiftieth year, came to be substantially a voluntary engagement for a
fixed time, which might be ended even before that time had expired, if
compensation for the unexpired term was made to the master.
It is to be observed that this provision applied only to the case of a
Hebrew who had sold himself. No other person could sell a man into
slavery. And it applied only to the case of a Hebrew who had sold
himself to a foreigner. No Jew was allowed to hold a Jew as a slave.
'If thy brother be waxen poor with thee, and sell himself unto thee,
thou shalt not make him to serve as a bondservant: as an hired servant,
and as a sojourner, he shall be with thee.' (Lev. xxv. 39, R. V.).
The last of the offices of the kinsman-redeemer was that of avenging
the blood of a murdered relative. If a man were stricken to death, it
became a solemn obligation to exact life for life, and the blood-feud
incumbent on all the family was especially binding on the next-of-kin.
The obligation shocks a modern mind, accustomed to relegate all
punishment to the action of law which no criminal thinks of resisting.
But customs and laws are unfairly estimated when the state of things
which they regulated is forgotten or confused with that of today. The
law of blood-feud among the Hebrews was all in the direction of
restricting the wild justice of revenge, and of entrusting it to
certain chosen persons out of the kindred of the murdered man. The
savage vendetta was too deeply engrained in the national habits to be
done away with altogether. All that was for the time possible was to
check and systematise it, and this was done by the institution in
question, which did not so much put the sword into the hand of the
next-of-kin as strike it out of the hand of all the rest of the clan.
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.