Goel (Judaism)

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Goel (Hebrew: גואל, romanized: goʾel}redeemer), in the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic Judaism, is a person who, as the nearest relative of someone, is charged with the duty of restoring that person's rights and avenging wrongs done to him or her. One duty of the goel was to redeem (purchase back) a relative who had been sold into slavery. Another was to avenge the death of a relative who had been wrongly killed; one carrying out this vengeance was known as the goel hadam, commonly translated to English as "avenger of blood."^[1]

The term goel is also used for other forms of redemption. In the Book of Isaiah, God is called the redeemer of Israel,^[2] as God redeems his people from captivity; the context shows that the redemption also involves moving on to something greater.