Their Redeemer is strong: Yahweh of Armies is his name. He will thoroughly plead their cause, that he may give rest to the earth, and disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon.
Parallel Translations
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Their Redeemer is strong: Yahweh of Armies is his name. He will thoroughly plead their cause, that he may give rest to the earth, and disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon.
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Their Redeemer is strong; the LORD of hosts is his name: he shall throughly plead their cause, that he may give rest to the land, and disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon.
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Their Redeemer is strong, the LORD of hosts is His name; He will thoroughly plead their cause, that He may give rest to the earth, and disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon.
Examined in Scripture Analysis
Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (21)
Passages linked to Jeremiah 50:34 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Isaiah 54:5 For your Maker is your husband; Yahweh of Armies is his name. The Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer. He will be called the God of the whole earth.
- Isaiah 41:14 Don’t be afraid, you worm Jacob, and you men of Israel. I will help you,” says Yahweh. “Your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.
- Isaiah 47:4 Our Redeemer, Yahweh of Armies is his name, is the Holy One of Israel.
- Jeremiah 15:21 “I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem you out of the hand of the terrible.”
- Jeremiah 51:36 Therefore Yahweh says: “Behold, I will plead your cause, and take vengeance for you. I will dry up her sea, and make her fountain dry.
- Psalms 35:1 Contend, Yahweh, with those who contend with me. Fight against those who fight against me.
- Psalms 43:1 Vindicate me, God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation. Oh, deliver me from deceitful and wicked men.
- Isaiah 43:14 Yahweh, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel says: “For your sake, I have sent to Babylon, and I will bring all of them down as fugitives, even the Chaldeans, in the ships of their rejoicing.
- Micah 7:9 I will bear the indignation of Yahweh, because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my case, and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light. I will see his righteousness.
- Proverbs 22:23 for Yahweh will plead their case, and plunder the life of those who plunder them.
- Proverbs 23:11 for their Defender is strong. He will plead their case against you.
- Isaiah 44:6 This is what Yahweh, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, Yahweh of Armies, says: “I am the first, and I am the last; and besides me there is no God.
- Isaiah 51:22 Your Lord Yahweh, your God who pleads the cause of his people, says, “Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of staggering, even the bowl of the cup of my wrath. You will not drink it any more.
- Micah 4:10 Be in pain, and labor to give birth, daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail; for now you will go out of the city, and will dwell in the field, and will come even to Babylon. There you will be rescued. There Yahweh will redeem you from the hand of your enemies.
- Isaiah 14:3-7 It will happen in the day that Yahweh will give you rest from your sorrow, from your trouble, and from the hard service in which you were made to serve, that you will take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, “How the oppressor has ceased! The golden city has ceased!” Yahweh has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers, who struck the peoples in wrath with a continual stroke, who ruled the nations in anger, with a persecution that no one restrained. The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet. They break out in song.
- Isaiah 44:23-24 Sing, you heavens, for Yahweh has done it! Shout, you lower parts of the earth! Break out into singing, you mountains, O forest, all of your trees, for Yahweh has redeemed Jacob, and will glorify himself in Israel. Yahweh, your Redeemer, and he who formed you from the womb says: “I am Yahweh, who makes all things; who alone stretches out the heavens; who spreads out the earth by myself;
- Jeremiah 51:19 The portion of Jacob is not like these, for he is the former of all things; including the tribe of his inheritance: Yahweh of Armies is his name.
- 2 Thessalonians 1:6-7 Since it is a righteous thing with God to repay affliction to those who afflict you, and to give relief to you who are afflicted with us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire,
- Revelation 18:8 Therefore in one day her plagues will come: death, mourning, and famine; and she will be utterly burned with fire; for the Lord God who has judged her is strong.
- Revelation 19:1-3 After these things I heard something like a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, “Hallelujah! Salvation, power, and glory belong to our God; for his judgments are true and righteous. For he has judged the great prostitute, who corrupted the earth with her sexual immorality, and he has avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.” A second said, “Hallelujah! Her smoke goes up forever and ever.”
- Exodus 6:6 Therefore tell the children of Israel, ‘I am Yahweh, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgments.
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain But he immediately after removes this ground of despair,…
But he immediately after removes this ground of despair, and says, Their redeemer is strong He then sets this strong, חזק, chesek, in opposition to the verb used before, “prevailed” or ruled, החזיקו בם, echesiku beem, “prevailed” or domineered “over them,” so that they were stronger. But now, on the other hand, he calls the Redeemer of Israel strong; for were you only to consider, he seems to say, how great the power of Babylon is, you might despond; but can God, in the meantime, do nothing? Is there any power on earth which can overrule him? Since then their redeemer was strong, he would prove superior to the Chaldeans.
He afterwards adds what is of the same import, His name is Jehovah of hosts; that is, neither Babylon nor all other nations have so much power as can resist the infinite power of God, for he is always like himself, and perfect; he is the God of hosts. He at length adds, Their strife by litigating he will litigate, or, by pleading he will plead the cause of his people, even so as to cut off or destroy the land The verb, רגע, rego, means indeed sometimes to rest, and so almost all give this rendering, “so as to make to rest the land:” but as I take “land” and “the inhabitants of Babylon” to be the same, I doubt not but that this verb is to be taken here in its proper sense. Then it is, so as to cut off or destroy the land, and to make to tremble the inhabitants of Babylon. He then speaks of the Chaldeans in mentioning the land, and afterwards explains himself by adding, the inhabitants of Babylon.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain He showeth that when God executeth his judgments against…
He showeth that when God executeth his judgments against his enemies, that his Church shall then have rest.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Jer 50:34 Their Redeemer [is] strong; the LORD of…
Jer 50:34 Their Redeemer [is] strong; the LORD of hosts [is] his name: he shall throughly plead their cause, that he may give rest to the land, and disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon.
Ver. 34. Their Redeemer is strong.] Or, But their strong avenger, whose name is the Lord of hosts; he shall thoroughly plead their cause - i.e., right their wrongs.
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That he may give rest to the land.] See on 2Th 1:8-9.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Their Redeemer is strong; the Lord of hosts is…
Their Redeemer is strong; the Lord of hosts is his name; the Lord, whose name is the Lord of hosts, is he that is their avenger (for so the word signifies); and he is as strong as any of those that hold them fast, and will not let them go.
He shall throughly plead their cause; be will plead their cause, not like a lawyer, but actually and really effect it, as pleading is often taken, as Jer 25:31; Eze 17:20; Joe 3:2.
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That he may give rest to the land, and disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon: these are the two ends which God aimeth at, to give his people rest, and to punish Babylon.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Their Redeemer is strong, the Lord of hosts is…
Their Redeemer is strong, the Lord of hosts is his name,.... And seeing his name is the Lord of hosts or armies, and has all the armies of heaven and earth at his command; and especially since he is Jehovah, the everlasting and unchangeable I AM; he must be strong and mighty, yea, the Almighty, and so able to redeem his Israel, as the Messiah was, who is here intended; from sin, Satan, and the world; from the law, its curse and condemnation; from death and hell, and wrath to come; as well as to deliver his people from the Romish yoke, and to avenge them on all their enemies:
he shall thoroughly plead their cause; with God and man; he that is the Redeemer of men is their advocate with the Father; with whom he pleads on their behalf his blood, righteousness and sacrifice, for all blessings of grace and glory; and to all charges of law and justice, and their own hearts, and the condemnings of them; and he pleads their cause with men, and rights their wrongs, and avenges the injuries done them by antichrist and others, Rev 19:2;
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that he may give rest to the land; not to the land of Judea only, but to the whole world; which will be at rest and in peace upon the destruction of mystical Babylon, and the conversion of the Jews, and their return to their own land; as well as the Messiah will give spiritual rest to all the redeemed ones here, and eternal rest, which remains for the people of God, hereafter:
and disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon; by the destruction of it and them; and rendering tribulation to them that trouble his people; and by punishing antichrist with the vials of his wrath, and with everlasting damnation, the smoke of whose torment shall ascend for ever and ever, Th2 1:6.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Plead - He will actually and readily effect it.
Plead - He will actually and readily effect it.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 34. Their Redeemer is strong] And it was…
Verse 34. Their Redeemer is strong] And it was not that he wanted power, and that Nebuchadnezzar had much, that Jerusalem was taken; but because the people had sinned, and would not return; and therefore national sins called for national punishments. These have taken place; and now the Lord of hosts shows them that the power of the Chaldeans is mere weakness against his might.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Redeemer - i. e., גאל gā'al. Yahweh is Israel’s…
Redeemer - i. e., גאל gā'al. Yahweh is Israel’s next relative, bound by law to avenge him, as well as to ransom him from captivity. It was the Go’el’s duty also to plead his kinsman’s cause. How thoroughly Yahweh will execute this duty for Israel is shown in the Hebrew by the triple repetition of the same word; literally “in pleading He will plead their plea.”
The land ... - Rather, “the earth.” Babylon has hitherto by its ambition kept the world in unrest: now by its fall men everywhere can dwell in security.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Name. He gives victory to Cyrus. Thus the Lord…
Name. He gives victory to Cyrus. Thus the Lord directs all for the sake of his elect, and laughs at the vain projects of men. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain strong--as opposed to the power of Israel's oppressor (Rev…
strong--as opposed to the power of Israel's oppressor (Rev 18:8).
plead . . . cause--as their advocate. Image from a court of justice; appropriate as God delivers His people not by mere might, but by righteousness. His plea against Satan and all their enemies is His own everlasting love, reconciling mercy and justice in the Redeemer's work and person (Mic 7:9; Zac 3:1-5; Jo1 2:1).
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give rest . . . disquiet--There is a play on the similarity of sounds in the two Hebrew verbs to express more vividly the contrast: "that He may give quiet to the land of Judah (heretofore disquieted by Babylon); but disquiet to the inhabitants of Babylon" (heretofore quietly secure) (Isa 14:6-8).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 34. Give rest to the land — Rather, to…
34. Give rest to the land — Rather, to the earth; which has been disquieted by the warlike ambition of Babylon. This will be done by suppressing the power of Babylon.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 34. redeemer] The Heb. is Goel, the title of…
34. redeemer] The Heb. is Goel, the title of the near kinsman, to whom according to Jewish law belonged the duty of revenging a murder, as well as that of advocate and general protector. In like manner the Lord is about to rescue His people and take vengeance upon their foe.
may give rest to the earth] All known nations had been more or less troubled by Babylon. Cp. Nah_3:19, of Nineveh.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (34) Their Redeemer is strong.—The word for “Redeemer” (Goël)…
(34) Their Redeemer is strong.—The word for “Redeemer” (Goël) includes, as elsewhere (Num_35:12; Rth_4:1; Rth_4:8; Job_19:25), the thought of “the next of kin,” with whom the right of redemption (in the technical sense) rested, and to whom belonged the duty of pleading for and avenging his kinsman when oppressed. It is interesting to note, in connection with the obvious allusion to Pro_16:18, that here, with the exception of the name of “the Lord of hosts is his name,” we have an actual citation from Pro_23:11.
That he may give rest to the land.—Better, to the earth, in its widest extent, as implying that the whole earth had groaned under the oppression of Babylon. “The land,” if we retain that rendering, would be, of course, “the land of Israel.” Some versions, however (e.g., the Vulg.), and some commentators (e.g., Ewald), give the verbs the sense of “set in motion,” i.e., “trouble,” and so make the parallelism of the two clauses one of resemblance and not of contrast.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain That he may give rest to the land; rather,…
That he may give rest to the land; rather, to the earth. Babylon was one of the great world empires; we can hardly dispense with this convenient Germanism. It was the wont of the Chaldeans, as Habakkuk puts it, (Hab_1:6) "to walk through the breadth of the earth, to possess dwelling places that were not theirs." Observe the striking contrast to the world which has been too long deprived of it, and "disquiet" to those who have hitherto spread it far and wide. (comp. Isa_14:2, Isa_14:3)
The strong Redeemer.
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I THE CHARACTER AND POWER OF THE REDEEMER.
1. God is the Redeemer. He is the Goel, the Friend, Advocate, Avenger, and Saviour of his children.
(1) The goel was the next of kin. (Lev_25:25) No man is so nearly related to us as God is.
(2) The goel was bound by law to redeem or avenge the sufferer. Human laws, in so far as they are just and good, are shadows of the Divine laws, i.e. of the ways of God"s procedure. If the Jewish law of redemption was inspired by God, it was made after the pattern of God"s manner of acting. In the New Testament we see this side of God"s work brought into leading prominence. Jesus Christ is the manifestation of God in the flesh, and Jesus Christ is preeminently "the Redeemer". (Eph_1:7)
2. The almightiness of God is our assurance of redemption. The massive strength of the rock makes it painful for us to fall upon it, and fearful and fatal for it to fall upon us; but this very characteristic renders it a blessing if we rest under its shadow, build on its foundation, or cling to it for support in the driving tempest. Men may well shrink from the might of God when they are opposed to it, and tremble and despair when it rises up, awful and irresistible, to crush them; but if they can turn to it with trust and know it is working their good, they will find in it a ground for solid assurance. How disastrous would it be for us to have a weak God, though he might have all other Divine perfections! His love might be infinite; but if he could only pity, and not effectually save us, his grace would be of little use. But our Redeemer is the Lord of hosts. If a host encamp against us, the Lord of hosts is on our side. The strength of the Redeemer is of importance, because
(1) our foes are great earthly trouble, sin, death;
(2) our evil state is disastrous we have fallen far into sin, some of us, perhaps, into deep wretchedness, only a strong hand can pull us out of so horrible a pit;
(3) our own strength is slight. We are not able to cope with the dangers that beset us. In face of the great forces of evil we are like withered leaves before the autumn blast. Hence to us weaklings amid the strange and awful powers of time and eternity, what grand comfort lies in the thought that "our Redeemer is strong"!
II THE METHOD AND FRUITS OF HIS REDEMPTION.
1. The method, "He shall throughly plead their cause." The case is intricate, many cross issues arise. The honour of God, justice, the maintenance of respect for law, the government of the universe, the highest good of all creatures, are concerned in the sin of man and its effects, and they must all be considered and fairly treated before redemption is possible. But we have no weak Advocate. God has gone through the whole labour and sacrifice. He has paid the price even the gift of his Son to die for us.
2. The fruits.
(1) Rest. "That he may give rest to the land." This was the greatest blessing to people who had been harried by invasions and wearied with exile. Rest is what the world most wants in its war and confusion, its toil and its sorrow. "Peace on earth" is the gospel benediction. Rest is what the soul most needs rest from sin, from self, from fear and doubt and wearing grief. Rest is the blessing Christ offers to those who will "come unto" him. Heaven is rest.
(2) The overthrow of foes. Babylon, the troubler of the nations, will be disquieted. Christ, the Rock of salvation, is to his enemies "a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence." In the spiritual redemption of Christians the spiritual foes are vanquished; sin and death, the last enemies, are slain. We can only have rest to our souls in proportion as our sins are conquered. So the Redeemer who brings balm for our soul"s wounds brings a sword for its sins.
A strong Redeemer.
"Their Redeemer is strong.
I IT WAS NECESSARY THAT HE SHOULD BE SO.
1. This is true of Israel"s Redeemer. See the power ranged against them. Physical, in the might of Babylon and the many hostile nations. Spiritual, in the justice of the sentence under which they were suffering. Moral, in the enfeebling effects of their disobedience, causing despondency, despair, timidity, giving power to evil habits, and making very difficult the acquirement of such as were good. But:
2. It is true of our Redeemer. The powers by which humanity is held in captivity are more terrible and unconquerable than were those by which Israel was held. These powers are commonly classified under the threefold division a trinity of hell of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Consider the power:
(1) Of the world, in enslaving the soul of man. The seductiveness of its smile, the terror of its frown, the overpowering force of its rewards, the awfulness of its punishments. And yet all this might is against God and against the soul.
(2) Of the flesh. Yes; it does beat against the spirit, it warreth against the soul. If it once have gained dominion, is that dominion ever entirely destroyed while this life lasts? And in some, yea, many, its dominion is allowed as something that cannot be broken. A moral despair comes over many in regard to it, and they cease to contend against a tyranny which they affirm they are powerless to escape from.
(3) Of the devil. He is no mere imagination, or myth, or invention of a credulous and superstitious age, but a living reality, against whom our Saviour, who knew his strength and terror as none other did for he had just come away from his encounter with him bade us in our daily prayer say, "Deliver us from the evil one." Who but he is it that is ever plying us with unhallowed thought and suggestion, causing the will and opportunity to sin so fatally to combine? But who of us is or can be ignorant of his devices? And when the force of all these terrible foes is augmented, as it is by the force of habit, of example, of inherited tendency, of enfeebled power of resistance the result of past defeats, oh, what need, indeed, is there that our Redeemer should be strong! But
II BLESSED BE GOD, HE IS SO. In regard to Israel, he did redeem them in part, and their more complete redemption is yet to come. In regard to humanity at large, he is strong likewise. See in proof of this:
1. His mighty power when here on earth. All those signs and wonders, those glorious miracles, were designed to confirm our faith in our Redeemer as One "mighty to save. Hence diseases fled devils were cast out, nature obeyed, Death gave up her dead, at his word. All these things were, as St. John calls them, "signs.
2. His might displayed in his Church. "I will build my Church," he said; and in spite of the feebleness in numbers, in influence, in intellectual or social power, in adaptation of methods, in selection of men; in spite of all the force that numbers, wealth, power, rank, cruelty, hate, could bring to bear; still his word was accomplished and is yet being accomplished. Must we not confess, in view of facts like these, that our Redeemer is strong?
3. His power over the individual soul. How he gives strength against the terror of a violated law, the might of an indwelling sin, the crushing power of earthly sorrow, the king of terrors, death itself! "Conversion is the standing miracle of the Church the transformations of character, condition, and conduct, which are perpetually being wrought by the power of Christ. All these compel the glad confession that Christ is "mighty to save." Now, note
III THAT HIS STRENGTH BECOMES OURS BY MEANS OF OUR FAITH. For faith in him brings to bear the power of:
1. The unseen.
2. Gratitude.
3. The new life. And so these marvels are wrought. "Mighty Redeemer, set me free From my old state of sin. C.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Their Redeemer is strong, the Lord of hosts is…
Jer_50:34
Their Redeemer is strong, the Lord of hosts is His name.
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The kinsman Redeemer
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?
I. The qualifications and offices of the kinsman-redeemer. The qualifications may be all summed up in one--that he must be the nearest living blood relation of the person whose God he was. He might be brother, or less nearly connected, hut 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. 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 its accumulation in a few hands. 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. (Lev_25:39). The last of the offices of the kinsman-redeemer was that of avenging the blood of a murdered relative. 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 habit 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.
II. The grand mysterious transference of this office to Jehovah. This singular institution was gradually discerned to be charged with lofty meaning and to be capable of being turned into a dim shadowing of something greater than itself. You will find that God begins to be spoken of in the later portions of Scripture as the Kinsman-Redeemer. I reckon eighteen instances, of which thirteen are in the second half of Isaiah. The reference is no doubt mainly to the great deliverance from captivity in Egypt and Babylon, but the thought sweeps a much wider circle and goes much deeper down than these historical facts. There was in it some dim thought that though God was separated from them by all the distance between finitude and infinitude yet they were nearer to Him than to anybody else; that the nearest living relation that these poor persecuted Jews had was the Lord of hosts, beneath whose wings they might come to trust. Therefore does the prophet kindle into rapture and triumphant confidence as he thinks that the Lord of hosts, mighty, unspeakable, high above our thoughts, our words, or our praise, is Israels Kinsman, and, therefore, their Redeemer. How profound a consciousness that man was made in the image of God, and that, in spite of all the gulf between finite and infinite, and the yet deeper gulf between sinful man and righteous God. He was closer to a poor struggling soul than even the dearest were, must have been at all events dawning on the prophet who dared to think of the Holy One in the Heavens as Israels Kinsman.
III. We have the perfect fulfilment of this Divine office by the man Christ Jesus. He is nearer to each of us than our dearest are. He loves us with the love of kindred, and can fill our hearts and wills, and help our weakness in better, more inward ways than all sympathy and love of human hearts can do. Between the atoms of the densest of material bodies there is an interspace of air, as is shown by the fact that everything is compressible if you can find the force sufficient to compress it. That is to say, no particle touches another in the material universe. And so in the spiritual region there is an awful film of separation between each of us and all others, however closely we may be united. We each live on our own little island in the deep with echoing straits between us thrown. The solemn consciousness of personality, of responsibility unshared by any, of a separate destiny parting us from our dearest. Arms may be twined, but they must be unlinked some day, and each in turn face the awful solitude of death, as each has really faced that scarcely less awful solitude of life alone. But he that is joined to the Lord is one flesh, and our kinsman, Christ, will come so near to us, that we shall be in Him, and He in us, one spirit and one life. He is our nearest relation, nearer than husband, wife, parent, brother, sister, or friend. He is nearer to you than your very selves. He is your better self. This is His qualification for His office. Because He is mans kinsman, He buys back His enslaved brethren. The bondage from which one of his brethren might redeem the Israelite was a voluntary bondage into which he had sold himself. And such is our slavery. None can rob us of our freedom but ourselves. The world and the flesh and the devil cannot put their chains on us unless our own will hold out our hands for the manacles. And, alas! it is often an unsuspected slavery How sayest thou ye shall be made free? We were never m bondage to any man, boasted the angry disputants with Christ. And if they had lifted up their-eyes they might have seen from the Temple courts in which they stood, the citadel full of Roman soldiers, and perhaps the golden eagles gleaming in the sunshine on the loftiest battlements. Some of us are just as foolish, and try as desperately to annihilate facts by ignoring them, and to make ourselves free by passionately denying that we are slaves. But he that committeth sin is the slave of sin. Did you ever try to kill a bad habit, a vice! Did you find it easy work? Was it not your master? You thought it was a chain no stronger than a spiders web that was round your wrist till you tried to break it; and then you found it a chain of adamant. Many men who boast themselves free are tied and bound with the cords of their sins. Dreaming of freedom, you have sold yourself, and that for nought. Is that not true, tragically true? What have you made out of sin? Is the game worth the candle? Will it continue to be so?--And ye shall be redeemed without money, for Jesus Christ laid down His life for you and me, that by His death we might receive forgiveness and deliverance from-the power of sin. And so your Kinsman, nearer to you than all else, has bought you back. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Another pleads for us
Says Charles Garrett: During the cotton famine I went to many a man m need and said: Why dont you go to the committee and get what you require? And the reply was, I cant, I have never asked for help in my life If I were to try to speak for myself I should be choked. I cant do it; Ill starve first. And I have said, I dont want you to speak.
I only want you to come. I will do all the talking, and at the appointed time he has come, and I have said, This is the person of whom I spoke, and they at once relieved him..
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain
Jeremiah
THE KINSMAN-REDEEMER
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Jer 50:34.
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 25:25}. 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 25:39}.
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.
II. Notice the grand mysterious transference of this office to Jehovah.
This singular institution was gradually discerned to be charged with lofty meaning and to be capable of being turned into a dim shadowing of something greater than itself. You will find that God begins to be spoken of in the later portions of Scripture as the Kinsman-Redeemer. I reckon eighteen instances, of which thirteen are in the second half of Isaiah. The reference is, no doubt, mainly to the great deliverance from captivity in Egypt and Babylon, but the thought sweeps a much wider circle and goes much deeper down than these historical facts. There was in it some dim feeling that though God was separated from them by all the distance between finitude and infinitude, yet they were nearer to Him than to any one else; that the nearest living relation whom these poor persecuted Jews had was the Lord of Hosts, beneath whose wings they might come to trust. Therefore does the prophet kindle into rapture and triumphant confidence as he thinks that the Lord of Hosts, mighty, unspeakable, high above our thoughts, our words, or our praise, is Israel’s Kinsman, and, therefore, their Redeemer. How profound a consciousness that man was made in the image of God, and that, in spite of all the gulf between finite and infinite, and the yet deeper gulf between sinful man and righteous God, He was closer to a poor struggling soul than even the dearest were, must have been at all events dawning on the prophet who dared to think of the Holy One in the Heavens as Israel’s Kinsman. No doubt, he was dwelling mostly on historical outward deliverances wrought for the nation, and his idea of Israel’s kinship to God applied to the people, not to individuals, and meant chiefly that the nation had been chosen for God’s. But still the thought must have been felt to be great and wonderful, and some faint apprehension of the yet deeper sense in which it is true that God is the next-of-kin to every soul and ready to be its Redeemer, would no doubt begin to be felt.
The deepening of the idea from a reference to external and national deliverances, and the large, dim hopes which clustered round it, may be illustrated by one or two significant instances. Take, for example, that mysterious and very beautiful utterance in the Book of Job, where the man, in the very depth of his despair, and just because there is not a human being that has any drop of pity for him, turns from earth, and striking confidence out of his very despair, like fire from flint, sees there his Kinsman-Redeemer. ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth.’ Men may mock him, friends may turn against him, the wife of his bosom may tempt him, comforters may pour vitriol instead of oil into his wounds, yet he, sitting on his dunghill there, poverty-stricken and desolate, knows that God is of kin to him, and will do the kinsman’s part by him. The very metaphor implies that the divine intervention which he expects is to take place after his death. It was a dead man whose blood the Goel avenged. Thus the view which sees in the subsequent words a hope, however dim and undefined, of an experience of a divine manifestation on his behalf beyond the grave is the only one which gives its full force to the central idea of the passage, as well as to the obscure individual expressions. Most strikingly, then, he goes on to say, carrying out the allusion, ‘and that he shall stand at the last upon the dust.’ Little did it boot the murdered man, lying there stark, with the knife in his bosom, that the murderer should be slain by the swift justice of his kinsman-avenger, but Job felt that, in some mysterious way, God would appear for him, after he had been laid in the dust, and that he would somehow share in the gladness of His manifestation-for he believes that ‘without his flesh’ he will see God, ‘whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.’ Large and mysterious hopes are gathering round the metaphor, which flash some light into the darkness of the grave, and give to the troubled soul the assurance that when life with all its troubles is past, and flesh has seen corruption, the inmost personal being of every man who commits his cause to God will behold Him coming forth his Kinsman-Redeemer.
Another illustration of the hopes which gathered round this image is found in the great psalm which prophesies of the true King of Peace, in language too wide for any poetical licence to warrant if intended only to describe a Jewish king {Psa 72:14}. The universal dominion of this great King is described in terms which, though they may be partly referred to the Jewish monarchy at its greatest expansion, sweep far beyond its bounds in exulting anticipation that ‘all kings shall fall down before Him, all nations shall serve Him.’ The reason for this world-wide dominion is not military power, as was the case with the warrior kings of old, who bound nations together for a little while in an artificial unity with iron chains, but His dominion is universal, ‘for He shall deliver the needy when he crieth, . . . He shall redeem their souls from oppression and violence, and precious shall their blood be in His sight.’ Two of the functions of the Kinsman-Redeemer are here united. He buys back slaves from their tyrannous masters, and He avenges their shed blood. And because His Kingdom is a kingdom of gentle pity and loving help, because He is of the same blood with His subjects, and brings liberty to the captives, therefore it is universal and everlasting. For the strongest thing in all the world is love, and He who can staunch men’s wounds, and will hear their cries and help them, will rule them with authority which conquerors cannot wield.
This universal King, the kinsman and the sovereign of all the needy, is not God. A human figure is rising before the prophet-psalmist’s eye, whose meekness as well as His majesty, and whose kingdom as well as His redeeming power, seem to pass beyond human limits. Divine offices seem to be devolved on a man’s shoulders. Dim hopes are springing which point onwards. So that great psalm leads us a step further.
III. See the perfect fulfilment of this divine office by the man Christ Jesus.
Job’s anticipation and the psalmist’s rapturous vision are fulfilled in the Incarnate Word, in whom God comes near to us all and makes Himself kindred to our flesh, that He may discharge all those blessed offices, of redeeming from slavery, of recovering our alienated inheritance, and of guarding our lives, which demand at once divine power and human nearness. Christ is our Kinsman. True, the divine nature and the human are nearly allied, so that even apart from the Incarnation, men may feel that none is so truly and closely akin to them as their Father in Heaven is. But how much more blessed than even that kinship is the consanguinity of Christ, who is doubly of kin to each soul of man, both because in His true manhood He is bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, and because in His divinity He is nearer to us than the closest human kindred can ever be. By both He comes so near to us that we may clasp Him by our faith, and rest upon Him, and have Him for our nearest friend, our brother. He is nearer to each of us than our dearest is. He loves us with the love of kindred, and can fill our hearts and wills, and help our weakness in better, more inward ways than all sympathy and love of human hearts can do. Between the atoms of the densest of material bodies there is an interspace of air, as is shown by the fact that everything is compressible if you can find the force sufficient to compress it. That is to say, in the material universe no particle touches another. And so in the spiritual region, there is an awful film of separation between each of us and all others, however closely we may be united. We each live on our own little island in the deep, ‘with echoing straits between us thrown.’ We have a solemn consciousness of personality, of responsibility unshared by any, of a separate destiny parting us from our dearest. Arms may be twined, but they must be unlinked some day, and each in turn must face the awful solitude of death, as each has really faced that scarcely less awful solitude of life, alone. But ‘he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit,’ and our kinsman, Christ, will come so near to us, that we shall be in Him and He in us, one spirit and one life. He is your nearest relation, nearer than husband, wife, parent, brother, sister, or friend. He is nearer to you than your very selves. He is your better self. That is His qualification for His office.
Because He is man’s kinsman, He buys back His enslaved brethren. The bondage from which ‘one of His brethren’ might ‘redeem’ the Israelite was a voluntary bondage into which he had sold himself. And such is our slavery. None can rob us of our freedom but ourselves. The world and the flesh and the devil cannot put their chains on us unless our own wills hold out our hands for the manacles.
And, alas! it is often an unsuspected slavery. ‘How sayest thou, ye shall be made free. We were never in bondage to any man,’ boasted the angry disputants with Christ. And if they had lifted up their eyes they might have seen from the Temple courts in which they stood, the citadel full of Roman soldiers, and perhaps the golden eagles gleaming in the sunshine on the loftiest battlements. Yet with that strange power of ignoring disagreeable facts they dared to assert their freedom. ‘Never in bondage to any man!’-what about Egypt, and Assyria, and Babylon? Had there never been an Antiochus? Was Rome a reality? Did it lay no yoke on them? Was it all a dream?
Some of us are just as foolish, and try as desperately to annihilate facts by ignoring them, and to make ourselves free by passionately denying that we are slaves. But ‘he that committeth sin is the slave of sin.’ That sounds a paradox. I am master of my own actions, you may say, and never freer than when I break the bonds of right and duty and choose to do what is contrary to them, for no reason on earth but because I choose. That is liberty, emancipation from the burdensome restraints which your narrow preaching about law and conscience would impose. Yes, you are masters of your actions, and your sinful actions very soon become masters of you. Do we not know that that is true? You fall into, or walk into a habit, and then it gets the mastery of you, and you cannot get rid of it. Whosoever sets his foot upon that slippery inclined plane of wrongdoing, after he has gone a little way, gravitation is too much for him and away he goes down the hill. ‘Whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin.’ Did you ever try to kill a bad habit, a vice? Did you find it easy work? Was it not your master? You thought that a chain no stronger than a spider’s web was round your wrist till you tried to break it; and then you found it a chain of adamant. Many men who boast themselves free are ‘tied and bound with the cords of their sins.’
Dreaming of freedom, you have sold yourself, and that ‘for nought.’ Is that not true, tragically true?
What have you made out of sin? Is the game worth the candle? Will it continue to be so? Ye shall be redeemed without money, for Jesus Christ laid down His life for you and me, that by His death we might receive forgiveness and deliverance from the power of sin. And so your Kinsman, nearer to you than all else, has bought you back. Do not refuse the offered emancipation, but ‘if thou mayest be made free, use it rather.’ Be not like the spiritless slaves, for whose servile choice the law provided, who had rather remain bond than go out free. Surely when Christ calls you to liberty, you will not turn from Him to the tyrannous masters whom you have served, and, like the Hebrew slave, let them fasten you to their door-posts with their awl through your ear. Do you hug your chains and prefer your bondage?
Your Kinsman-Redeemer brings back your squandered inheritance, which is God. God is the only possession that makes a man rich. He alone is worth calling ‘my portion.’ It is only when we have God in our hearts, God in our heads, God in our souls, God in our life-it is only when we love Him, and think about Him, and obey Him, and bring our characters into harmony with Him, and so possess Him-it is only then that we become truly rich. No other possession corresponds to our capacities so as to fill up all our needs and satisfy all our being. No other possession passes into our very substance and becomes inseparable from ourselves. So the mystical fervour of the psalmist’s devotion spoke a simple prose truth when he exclaimed, ‘The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup.’
We have squandered our inheritance. We have sinned away fellowship with God. We have flung away our true wealth, ‘wasted our substance in riotous living.’ And here is our Elder Brother, our nearest relative, who has always been with the Father; but who, instead of grudging the prodigals their fatted calf and their hearty welcome when they come back, has Himself, by the sacrifice of Himself, won for them the inheritance, its earnest in the possession of God’s spirit here and its completion in the broad fields of ‘the inheritance of the saints in light,’ the entire fruition and possession of the divine in the life to come. ‘If children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.’
Your Kinsman-Redeemer will keep your lives under His care, and be ready to plead your cause. ‘He that touches you, touches the apple of Mine eye.’ ‘He reproved kings for their sake, saying, Touch not Mine anointed.’ Not in vain does the cry go up to Him, ‘Avenge, O Lord, Thy slaughtered saints,’-and if no apparent retribution has followed, and if often His servant’s blood seems to have been shed in vain, still we know that it has often been the seed of the Church, and that He who puts our tears into His bottle will not count our blood less precious in His sight. So we may rest confident that our Kinsman-Redeemer will charge Himself with pleading our cause and intervening in our behalf, that He will compass us about with His protection, and that we are knit so close to Him that our woes and foes are His, and that we cannot die as long as He lives.
So, dear brethren, be sure of this, that if only you will take Christ for your Saviour and brother, your Helper and Friend, if only you will rest yourself upon that complete sacrifice which He has made for the sins of the world, He will give you liberty, and restore your lost inheritance, and your blood shall be precious in His sight, and He will keep His hand around you and preserve you; and finally will bring you into His home and yours. ‘In Him we have redemption through His blood,’ and He comes to every one of you now, even through my poor lips, with His ancient word of merciful invitation: ‘Behold! I have blotted out as a cloud thy sins and as a thick cloud thy transgressions. Turn unto Me, for I have redeemed thee.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain Heb. "goel," Redemp. (Kinsman type). (See Scofield "Isa 59:20").
redeemer
Heb. "goel," Redemp. (Kinsman type). (See Scofield "Isa 59:20").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.