One of the provisions that God made for the people of Israel was the law of the kinsman redeemer, which is described in Leviticus 25. It required a close relative to act on behalf of another in their time of need. The Hebrew word for “kinsman redeemer” is ga’al, and refers to a near male relative who delivers or rescues. The kinsman redeemer might be called upon to avenge the murder of a relative or to buy back property on behalf of a relative who had been forced to sell it because they had become poor. Another important role of the kinsman redeemer was to marry his brother’s widow if he had died and left no children. The first son born from that union would be considered the son of the dead father, thereby carrying on his name and inheriting his property. The most well-known example of the kinsman redeemer in the Bible is Boaz, who married Naomi’s widowed daughter-in-law, Ruth, thereby securing Ruth and Naomi’s future, providing a son and heir for Ruth’s late husband, and providing a grandson for Naomi.
The impact that a kinsman redeemer could have in restoring what had been lost to a family in need is beautifully illustrated by Naomi. Naomi, who had lost both her husband and her two sons, had renamed herself “Mara,” which means “bitter,” saying that her life had become “empty.” But because of Boaz’s act of redemption, her life was once again “full,” with a devoted daughter-in-law in Ruth, a faithful redeemer in Boaz, and a beautiful grandson, Obed.
It is not by accident that Obed, the child born out of that act of redemption, became the grandfather of David, from whose ancestral line Jesus would also be born, because the picture of the kinsman redeemer beautifully illustrates what Jesus came to do. Though he is God, he became one with us as human beings so that, as the writer to the Hebrews said, he is not ashamed to call us human beings his “brothers” (Hebrews 2:11). Jesus made himself our kinsman so that he could redeem us from the barrenness of sin and provide for us to have new life. Becoming our kinsman was not just a poetic gesture. Rather, Scripture says, “he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might…make propitiation for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:17).
In order to represent us in God’s plan to undo the effects of Adam’s sin, Jesus had to become one of us. By his obedience to God on our behalf, he has undone Adam’s disobedience; and by his sacrificial death on our behalf, he has paid the price for our guilt in order to redeem us. As a result, just as Boaz made Ruth his bride and so redeemed Naomi and her family, restoring life to an ancestral line that was dead, Jesus, our kinsman redeemer, has made the people of God his bride, restoring life to us, though we were dead.
May the words of Naomi’s friends also be our song of praise for what our kinsman redeemer has done for us: “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned [among us], for he shall be to you a restorer of life!” (Ruth 4:14-15a).
Jon Enright