Two Kingdoms · c. 700 BC
Chapter 20
Tobias and Sarah
Tobit is in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles; most Protestant Bibles leave it out or print it apart as the Apocrypha.
I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels which present the prayers of the saints and go in before the glory of the Holy One.”
For parents
This chapter tells how Sarah’s seven earlier husbands each died on his wedding night, and how a demon is driven off with smoke and bound by the angel (Tobit 7:11; 8:2–3). Raguel digs a grave in case Tobias has died too, and Anna mourns her son as dead (8:9–12; 10:4–7). Tobit’s last words foretell the burning of God’s house in Jerusalem and the fall of Nineveh, and tell of a man who brought down the one who raised him and then died in a trap. The chapter ends with the deaths of Tobit, Anna, Raguel, Edna and Tobias (14:4–15).
came into with the companion he knew as . Tobias didn’t know it, but the man was , an . They went to the house of , and it was who met them. She greeted them, they greeted her, and she brought them into the house.
Raguel said to his wife, , “This young man looks so much like my cousin !”
“Where are you two from, brothers?” Raguel asked them.
“We are from the tribe of ,” they said, “and we are captives in .”
“Do you know our relative Tobit?”
“We know him.”
“Is he in good health?”
“He is alive, and he is well,” they told him.
Then Tobias said, “He is my father.”
Raguel sprang to his feet, kissed him, and wept. He blessed him and said, “You are the son of an honest and good man.” When he heard that Tobit had lost his sight, it grieved him, and he wept.
His wife Edna wept, and so did his daughter Sarah. They welcomed the two of them gladly. They killed a ram from the flock and served them a meal of meat.
But Tobias said to Raphael, “Brother Azarias, bring up the things you talked about on the road, and let’s get the matter settled.” On the way, Raphael had told him about Raguel’s only daughter, Sarah, and had said he would ask for her to be given to Tobias as his wife.
So Raphael told Raguel about it, and Raguel said to Tobias, “Eat, drink, and enjoy yourself, because you are the one who has the right to marry my child. But I will tell you the truth. I have given my daughter in marriage to seven men, all of them our relatives, and every one of them died the same night he went into her room. But for now, enjoy yourself.”
But Tobias said, “I won’t taste anything here until all of you make a with me and bind yourselves to it.”
“Then from now on, take her as your wife, as the custom is,” said Raguel. “You are her relative, and she is yours. The merciful God will give you every success.”
He called his daughter Sarah, took her by the hand, and gave her to be Tobias’s wife. “Here she is,” he said. “Take her as your wife according to the law of Moses, and take her home to your father.” And he blessed them.
Then he called his wife Edna. He took a scroll, wrote out a contract, and sealed it. After that they began to eat.
Raguel called Edna again and spoke to her by the loving name a husband used for his wife. “Sister,” he said, “get the other room ready, and bring her in there.”
She did as he asked and took Sarah into the room. There she wept, and she received her daughter’s tears. “Take comfort, my child,” she said. “May the Lord of heaven and earth give you favor for this sorrow of yours. Take comfort, my daughter.”
When they had finished supper, they brought Tobias to Sarah’s room. As he went, he remembered what Raphael had told him on the road: in the bridal room, the would smell the smoke of the fish’s heart and liver. It would flee and never come back. So he took the ashes of the , put the heart and the liver of the fish on them, and made smoke with them.
The demon smelled it and fled into the uppermost parts of Egypt, and the angel bound him.
When the two of them were shut in together, Tobias got up from the bed. “Sister, get up,” he said, “and let’s pray that the Lord will have mercy on us.”
And Tobias began to pray:
Blessed are you, God of our ancestors,and blessed is your holy and glorious name forever.Let the heavens bless you, and everything you have made.You made Adam, and you gave him Eve his wifeto help him and support him.From them came all humankind.You said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.Let’s make him a helper like him.”And now, Lord, I take this sister of minenot out of lust, but in truth.Command that I find mercyand grow old with her.
“Amen,” Sarah said with him. And the two of them slept that night.
Raguel got up, went out, and dug a grave. “In case he dies too,” he said.
Then he came back into his house and said to his wife Edna, “Send one of the maids in to see whether he is alive. If he isn’t, we will bury him, and no one will know.”
So the maid opened the door and went in, and she found them both asleep. She came out and told them that he was alive.
Then Raguel blessed God. “Blessed are you, God, with every pure and holy blessing! Let your holy ones bless you, and everything you have made! Let all your angels and your chosen ones bless you forever! Blessed are you, because you have made me glad. What I suspected has not happened to me. Instead, you have treated us with your great mercy. Blessed are you, because you have had mercy on two who were their parents’ only children. Show them mercy, Lord. Give them full lives, in health, with gladness and mercy.”
He told his servants to fill the grave back in. Then he held a wedding feast for the couple, and it lasted fourteen days.
Before the days of the feast were over, Raguel swore an oath that Tobias must not leave until all fourteen days of the wedding feast were complete. After that, Tobias was to take half of all Raguel had and go home safely to his father. “The rest,” Raguel said, “you will have when my wife and I die.”
Tobias called Raphael. “Brother Azarias,” he said, “take a servant and two camels with you and go to in , to . Get the money for me, and bring him to the wedding feast, because Raguel has sworn that I must not leave. My father is counting the days, and if I stay away long, he will be deeply grieved.”
So Raphael went on his way and stayed the night with Gabael, and he gave Gabael the handwritten note. Gabael brought out the bags with their seals on them and gave them to Raphael. They held the ten talents of silver that Tobit had left with Gabael for safekeeping, about 660 pounds.
Early in the morning the two men set out together and came to the wedding feast. Tobias blessed his wife.
Back in Nineveh, Tobit was counting every day. When the time for the journey was up and they still didn’t come, he said, “Could he have been held up? Or could Gabael be dead, with no one to give him the money?” He was deeply grieved.
But his wife said to him, “Our child is dead. That’s why he is taking so long.” She began to weep and wail for him. “My child, the light of my eyes,” she said, “nothing matters to me now that I have let you go.”
“Hush,” Tobit told her. “Don’t worry. He is well.”
“You hush,” she said. “Don’t try to fool me. My child is dead.” Every day she went out to the road they had taken. She ate nothing in the daytime, and she spent whole nights mourning for her son Tobias, without stopping. This went on until the fourteen days of the wedding feast were over, the days Raguel had sworn Tobias would spend there.
Then Tobias said to Raguel, “Let me go. My father and my mother don’t expect to see me anymore.”
“Stay with me,” said his father-in-law. “I will send people to your father to tell him how things are with you.”
“No,” said Tobias. “Send me home to my father.”
So Raguel got up and gave him Sarah his wife, and half of all he had: servants, cattle, and money. He blessed them and sent them off. “The God of heaven will make you prosper, my children, before I die,” he said.
To his daughter he said, “Honor your father-in-law and your mother-in-law. They are your parents now. Let me hear good things about you.” And he kissed her.
Edna said to Tobias, “May the Lord of heaven see you safely home, dear brother. May he let me see children born to you and my daughter Sarah, so that I can rejoice in the Lord’s presence. I am putting my daughter in your special care. Don’t cause her any grief.”
After this Tobias went on his way too, blessing God for making his journey go well, and he blessed Raguel and his wife Edna. He traveled on until they came near Nineveh.
Then Raphael said to Tobias, “Brother, don’t you know how your father was when you left him? Let’s hurry on in front of your wife and have the house ready. But take the fish’s in your hand.” So they went on, and the dog followed them.
Anna sat watching the path for her son. She saw him coming and said to his father, “Look! Your son is on his way, with the man who traveled with him!”
“I know your father will open his eyes, Tobias,” Raphael said. “So put the bile on his eyes. It will sting, and he will rub them and make the white films fall away. Then he will see you.”
Anna ran to him and threw her arms around her son’s neck. “I have seen you, my child!” she said. “Now I am ready to die.” And the two of them wept.
Tobit came toward the door and stumbled, but his son ran to him and caught hold of him. He rubbed the bile on his father’s eyes. “Take heart, Father,” he said.
When Tobit’s eyes began to hurt, he rubbed them, and the white films peeled away from the corners of his eyes. He saw his son, and he threw his arms around his neck.
He wept and said, “Blessed are you, God, and blessed is your name forever! Blessed are all your holy angels! You struck me, and you have had mercy on me. Look, I can see my son Tobias!”
And his son went inside, full of joy, and told his father the great things that had happened to him in Media.
Tobit went out to the gate of Nineveh to meet his daughter-in-law, rejoicing and blessing God as he went. The people who saw him walking were amazed, because his sight had come back. And Tobit gave thanks in front of them all, because God had shown him mercy.
When he came near his daughter-in-law Sarah, he blessed her. “Welcome, daughter!” he said. “Blessed is God, who has brought you to us, and blessed are your father and your mother.” And there was joy among all his relatives in Nineveh.
came, and so did , his brother’s son. Tobias’s wedding feast was held for seven days, with great gladness.
Then Tobit called his son Tobias. “My child,” he said, “make sure the man who went with you gets his wages, and you must give him more on top of that.”
“Father,” said Tobias, “it won’t hurt me to give him half of everything I have brought back. He has led me back to you safely, he cured my wife, he brought my money, and he cured you too.”
“He deserves it,” said the old man.
So the angel was called and told, “Take half of everything you have brought.”
Then the angel spoke to the two of them privately. “Bless God and give him thanks. Tell of his greatness, and thank him in front of everyone alive for what he has done for you. It is good to bless God and lift his name high, and to make his works known with honor. Don’t be slow to thank him.
“It is good to keep a king’s secret, but God’s works should be made known in a glorious way. Do good, and harm won’t find you. Prayer is good, along with fasting, giving to the poor, and doing right. Having a little and doing right is better than having a lot and doing wrong. Giving to the poor is better than piling up gold. Giving to the poor saves people from death, and it cleanses away all sin. Those who give to the poor and do right will be filled with life, but those who sin are enemies of their own lives.
“I will hide nothing from you. I have said, ‘It is good to keep a king’s secret, but God’s works should be made known in a glorious way.’ Now, when you and your daughter-in-law Sarah prayed, I brought your prayer before the to be remembered. When you buried the dead, I was with you then too. And when you got up from your dinner without delay and went to bury the dead, your good deed was not hidden from me. I was with you.
“And now God has sent me to heal you and your daughter-in-law Sarah. I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels who present the prayers of God’s holy people and go in before the glory of the Holy One.”
They were both troubled, and they bowed with their faces to the ground, because they were afraid.
“Don’t be afraid,” he told them. “You will all have peace. But bless God forever. I didn’t come by any favor of my own. I came by the will of your God. So bless him forever. All these days I appeared to you, but I didn’t eat or drink. What you all saw was a vision. Now give thanks to God, because I am going up to the one who sent me. Write down in a book everything that has happened.”
Then they got up, and they didn’t see him anymore. They told of the great and wonderful works of God, and of how the angel of the Lord had appeared to them.
Then Tobit wrote a prayer of joy. It begins:
Blessed is God, who lives forever!Blessed is his kingdom!He strikes, and he shows mercy.He brings people down to the grave, and he brings them up again.No one can escape his hand.
“Give him thanks in front of the nations, all you children of Israel,” he went on, “because he has scattered us among them. Tell of his greatness there. Lift him up before everyone alive, because he is our Lord, and God is our Father forever. He will strike us for our sins, and he will show mercy again. He will gather us out of all the nations where you have been scattered.
“If you turn to him with your whole heart and your whole soul, to live by the truth before him, then he will turn to you, and he won’t turn away from you. See what he will do for you. Thank him with all your voice. Bless the Lord of righteousness, and lift up the everlasting King.”
And he went on:
I give him thanks in the land where I am a captive,and I show his strength and majesty to a nation of sinners.Turn, you sinners, and do right before him.Who knows? He may accept you and have mercy on you.
“I lift up my God,” he said. “My soul lifts up the King of heaven and rejoices in his greatness. Let everyone speak, and let them give him thanks in .”
Then he spoke to the city itself:
Jerusalem, holy city,he will strike you for what your children have done,and he will have mercy again on the children of the righteous.Give thanks to the Lord with goodness,and bless the everlasting King,so that his may be built in you again with joy,so that he may make the captives in you glad,and love forever the ones in you who are miserable.
Many nations will come from far away to the name of the Lord God, Tobit said. They will bring gifts in their hands, gifts to the King of heaven. Generation after generation will praise Jerusalem and sing songs of joy. All who hate her are cursed, and all who love her forever will be blessed. Jerusalem should rejoice and be very glad for the children of the righteous, because they will be gathered together and will bless the Lord of the righteous. Blessed are those who love her: they will rejoice over her peace. Blessed are all who have mourned over all the blows she has suffered, because they will rejoice for her when they see all her glory, and they will be glad forever. “Let my soul bless God, the great King,” he said.
And the song ends:
Jerusalem will be built with sapphires, emeralds, and precious stones,her walls and towers and battlements with pure gold.The streets of Jerusalem will be pavedwith beryl and carbuncle and stones of .All her streets will say, “Hallelujah!”and give praise: “Blessed be God, who has lifted you up forever!”
So Tobit finished giving thanks. He had been fifty-eight years old when he lost his sight, and eight years later he got it back. He gave to the poor. He feared the Lord God more and more, and he gave him thanks.
Tobit grew very old. He called his son Tobias, along with Tobias’s six sons, and said to him, “My child, take your sons. I have grown old, and I am ready to leave this life. Go to Media, my child, because I firmly believe everything the said about Nineveh, that it will be overthrown. In Media there will be peace for a while instead. Our people will be scattered over the earth, away from the good land. Jerusalem will lie in ruins, and the house of God in it will be burned down and lie in ruins for a time.
“God will have mercy on them again and bring them back into the land. They will build the house, but it won’t be like the one before, not until the times of that age are complete. After that they will come back from the places where they were captives and build Jerusalem up with honor, and the house of God will be built in it forever, a glorious building, just as the prophets said. All the nations will turn and truly fear the Lord God, and they will bury their . All the nations will bless the Lord. His people will give thanks to God, and the Lord will lift up his people. And all who love the Lord God in truth and righteousness will rejoice, and show mercy to our people.
“And now, my child, leave Nineveh, because what the prophet Jonah said will surely happen. But you must keep the law and its commands, and be merciful and righteous, so that things go well for you.
“Give me a proper burial, and bury your mother with me. Don’t stay in Nineveh. Think, my child, about what did to Achiacharus, who had raised him. Aman brought him out of the light into darkness, and think of all the ways he paid him back. Achiacharus was saved, but Aman was paid back in turn, and he went down into darkness. gave to the poor and escaped the trap of death that was set for him, but Aman fell into the trap and died.
“And now, my children, think about what giving to the poor does, and how righteousness saves.” As he was saying these things, he died in his bed. He was a hundred and fifty-eight years old. Tobias gave him a splendid burial.
When Anna died, Tobias buried her with his father. Then he went with his wife and his sons to Ecbatana, to his father-in-law Raguel. He grew old with honor. He gave his father-in-law and mother-in-law splendid burials. He inherited what they owned, and his father Tobit’s property too.
He died at Ecbatana in Media when he was a hundred and twenty-seven years old. Before he died, he heard that Nineveh had been destroyed: and had taken it captive. And he rejoiced over Nineveh.