REDEEMER — one who BUYS BACK. GA'AL is not a religious abstraction but a family obligation in Israelite law: the go'el is the nearest kinsman with both the standing and the duty to recover what a relative has lost — to buy back sold land, to ransom a relative sold into servitude, to marry a childless widow, to avenge a killing (Leviticus 25:25-55; Numbers 35). Its FIRST occurrence in the Bible is here, in a blessing over two boys: 'the angel who has REDEEMED me from all evil' (48:16). Jacob places it in apposition with 'the God who has shepherded me' — whether identifying the angel WITH God or distinguishing him from God is grammatically open, and readers have gone both ways for two thousand years. The word goes on to carry Boaz in Ruth, the jubilee laws, and a great deal of Isaiah. KJV 'the Angel which redeemed me from all evil.' → first discussed at Gen 48:16