Ha-Goel

Everything here began with one word that an old man spoke over his grandsons in Egypt. Blessing the sons of Joseph, Jacob named the One who had kept his life, and the last name he gave Him was this.

Genesis 48:16 the messenger who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be called in them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth."

In Hebrew the phrase is ha-malakh ha-goel הַגֹּאֵל gaw-al'. It is the first place in Scripture where the verb gaal גָּאַל gaw-al', to redeem, appears, and the only place in Genesis. Forty chapters on in this book, we can see where that word leads.

What Jacob Had

Jacob had two things to go on when he spoke that word. He had a line of promise that reached back to the garden, where a seed of the woman was promised who would bruise the serpent’s head and whose heel would be bruised. As Book 4 showed, Jacob’s own name carried the word for that heel. And he had what had actually happened in his own life: a God who spoke to him at Bethel, a messenger who said, “I am the God of Bethel,” and a man who wrestled with him through the night at the Jabbok and left him limping at sunrise.

On those two things Jacob made his judgment. He named the One who had held him goel, the near kinsman who redeems, and he confessed that he had waited all his life for the LORD’s salvation. The meeting came first; the names came after. They were not a summary of doctrine he had been taught. They were a summary of what he had lived.

The Whole Line

Set out in order, the whole line runs like this.

The first four stages belong to Jacob. The last four belong to everyone who comes after the price was paid. Through every stage the one who takes hold is reaching for God. Jacob held on at the Jabbok to the One he said he had seen as God, and he waited for the LORD’s salvation (Genesis 49:18); the believer now enters through Yeshua as the door. The order the New Testament sets out is an order of taking hold of the Redeemer.

And the strength for taking hold has never come from the one who takes hold. What remained to Jacob after his night of wrestling was a limp. What gives the believer a place before God is a birth from above in which he did nothing, a price paid by the blood of the Lamb, and a keeping that Yeshua finished before ours began. Justification is by grace, through faith. Those who are justified walk in His commandments, and in that walk they remain.

Who the Messenger Was

One question has run beneath everything: who was the messenger Jacob called goel?

Scripture gives the pieces. He spoke of Himself as God, He wrestled with Jacob as a man, and Hosea called Him both God and angel, malakh, the word Jacob used. The law required that a goel be flesh of the same flesh as the one he redeems, and able to pay. In Revelation the Lion of Judah stands as a slaughtered Lamb, who purchased people for God by His blood. And John writes this.

John 1:14 And the logos λόγος log'-os(Word) became sarx σάρξ sarx(flesh) and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory — glory as of the only-begotten from the Father — full of charis χάρις khar'-ece(grace) and aletheia ἀλήθεια al-ay'-thi-a(truth).

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Through Judah and David, the Lamb who purchased people for God was born one of Jacob’s own descendants, flesh of the same flesh, and paid the price that only a kinsman could pay.

Scripture lays these words side by side. It does not write the one sentence that says the messenger at the Jabbok and the Word who became flesh are the same. But the messenger was God, and the Son is the One who makes the unseen God known. Read together, the verses make it a very persuasive interpretation that the One Jacob called goel is Yeshua, the Word who became flesh. That much can be said, and each reader can set Genesis 48:16 beside John 1:14 and see why. Jacob called the One who redeemed him Ha-Goel, the One who redeems. Believers call on Yeshua as Redeemer today.

What Comes Next

One word in the last stage of the line has been touched on again and again without being opened. Yeshua said, “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My agape ἀγάπη ag-ah'-pay(love).” He also said, “If anyone agapao ἀγαπάω ag-ap-ah'-o(loves) Me, he will keep My logos(word).” In the verses where Yeshua spoke of remaining, love stood beside it.

What is that love? How does Scripture describe a love that keeps commandments, a love to which the Father and the Son answer by coming to make Their abode? That word, agape, runs through Scripture as the word goel does, and the next book in this series follows it.