Tool Beta
Hebrew and Greek Without Learning Either
A walk through Genesis, the Psalms, and John, plus the key Hebrew and Greek words worth knowing. Each card is a place the English Bibles part company, and what in the Hebrew or Greek made them.
goel
Kinsman-redeemer. A legal role English has no word for at all.
Ruth 3:12, in every translation this tool compares.
Next of kin. English has a phrase for who the relative is and no word at all for what that relative is obliged to do.
Because Ruth, Job and Isaiah all turn on it and English has to use two hyphenated words or a paraphrase, which means most readers meet the idea without the institution behind it.
Versions read kinsman, redeemer, kinsman-redeemer, or guardian-redeemer.
גֹּאֵל goel · H1350
The goel is the nearest male relative, obliged to buy back sold family land, redeem a relative sold into slavery, avenge a killing, and marry a widow to raise an heir. It is a legal office, not a sentiment.
English has no equivalent institution, so every rendering is either a paraphrase or an invented compound.
Where a word names an institution your culture does not have, no translation will work. Learn the institution.
Kinsman-redeemer and redeemer are the majority renderings; guardian-redeemer is the NIV's.
- The duties at Leviticus 25:25-55 and Numbers 35:19
- Ruth 3-4 throughout
- goel of God: Job 19:25; Isaiah 41:14
