And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, ‘May he be blessed by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!’ Naomi also said to her, ‘The man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers.’”
(Ruth 2:20 ESV)
Behind the word “redeemers” in this verse is the Hebrew verb ga’al (גָּאַל), pronounced gah-AHL. It means “to redeem,” “to reclaim,” or “to buy back.” The person who carried out that responsibility was known as a go’el (גּוֹאֵל), pronounced go-EL.
A go’el was a kinsman-redeemer. Somone with both the right and the responsibility to step in when a relative was in trouble. If land had been lost, the go’el could buy it back. If a family line was in danger of ending, the go’el could help preserve it. If someone was vulnerable and exposed, the go’el could step in and provide protection and help.
When Ruth came home from the fields talking about Boaz, at first, he just seemed like a generous landowner. But when Naomi heard his name, she immediately recognized that Boaz was someone who could ga’al. He could redeem. He could step into their situation and change the future they thought was hopeless.
You can almost feel the hope beginning to flicker again in Naomi’s heart. Up to this point, Naomi has been living like someone who believed the story is over. All she was focused on was getting through another day, enduring the ache.
Many of us know what that feels like. Sometimes disappointment hangs around so long that we stop expecting anything to change. We assume the marriage will always feel strained. The grief will always feel this heavy. The failure will always define us. The years we lost are gone forever. We may never say those thoughts out loud, but deep down we start believing them.
But the presence of a go’el meant Naomi and Ruth were not as hopeless as they thought. At this point in the story, Boaz hasn’t solved everything yet, but his presence alone changes how Naomi sees things. There’s now a possibility that wasn’t there before. That’s what a redeemer does. He steps into a situation that feels hopeless and says, “This isn’t over yet. I’ll take care of it.”
And that idea doesn’t stop with Boaz. The role of go’el in the Old Testament points forward to something far greater, to the way God Himself steps in on behalf of His people and redeems us. He redeems wasted years. Redeems failures. Redeems suffering that seems meaningless.
And ultimately, go’el points us to Jesus, our kinsman-redeemer. He looked at the mess we were in, a hopeless mess we could never fix on our own, and said, “I’ll care of it.” Through his sacrifice on the cross, he took on our debt of sin, so that we might be fully restored to God.
You may look at some part of your life and think, “There’s no fixing this now.” But the God we read about in Ruth is still a redeeming God. He specializes in entering hopeless places and reclaiming them. The Redeemer is still at work!
Prayer: Lord, thank you for being a God who redeems. Thank you that you do not abandon broken people or hopeless situations. When I feel stuck in loss or disappointment, remind me that you are still able to reclaim and restore. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Alan Smith
Reprinted with permission from Alan Smith’s Thought For the Day