Tobit: Chapters 1 to 7

Last time, the Book of Nehemiah came to an end.  Now onto Tobit.

CHAPTER 1

I remember reading this book when I nearly got all the way through the Bible at age 10.  At the time, it was my favorite book of the Bible.  After college I succeeded in reading the entire Bible, and this time I had a very different attitude about Tobit. “This was my favorite book?  The heck?”  I guess the third time will be the tiebreaker.

This is also the first of the Catholics-only Bible books.  You won’t find Tobit in the Jewish Bible or the Protestant Bible.  There are seven books that Catholics include that the other doesn’t.  The introduction notes tell me that this book is believed to have been written around the second century BC, so rather late.  I guess the Protestants and Jews don’t really consider it important enough or real enough.  Basically, they consider it Biblical fan-fic. 

And it is.  This is Biblical fan-fic.  (Then again, so is Esther and so is Daniel, and those are in all the Bibles). 

OK, so onto the story.  Tobit is a good man. The author here really wants to beat us over the head with that fact.  He lives in the northern kingdom shortly before the Assyrian conquest, but Tobit won’t worship at the golden calf like all his neighbors.  No, sirree.  Instead, he goes to Jerusalem, just like Deuteronomy tells him to.  (Never mind that Deuteronomy hasn’t been written yet).  He gives tithes to the priests.  He cares for his parents until they die (which is when he’s pretty young, apparently).

He marries and has a kid named Tobiah.  Things are going great.  Then Assyria takes over. Unlike most of the people sent to the Assyrian capital of Nineveh, Tobit holds true to the ways of the lord, not eating the food of the Gentiles.  Because he’s a good Jewish boy like that.  Oh, and he is apparently a competent one too, because the Assyrian ruler hires him as purchasing agent. So though he’s in exile, things are still going well.

Then things really take a turn for the worse.  The old king dies and his son because king.  The son sucks.  Tobit can’t go travel (a requirement for a purchasing agent in those days before cell phones) because the roads are now dangerous. And that’s not even the capper.

The capper is the new king is pissed at Tobit.  You see, Tobit insists on burying the dead.  He gives his bread to the hungry and clothing to the naked, and whenever a Jew dies, Tobit buries him. 

Wait – why would that upset the king so much?  Apparently, the king likes killing them.  We’re told that dead Jews are being thrown behind the wall in Nineveh, and Tobit buries them.  I guess they’re not supposed to be fit for burial.  A little later we’re told that the king kills them – “For in his rage he killed many Israelites.”  So the king is a sociopath.  Really, this part of the plot is pretty underdeveloped.  At the very least what Tobit is doing is hygienic.  More importantly, it’s in keeping with God’s laws – because Tobit is so incredibly good. 

At any rate, King Crazy Guy wants Tobit dead, because he buries the dead.  Tobit is forced to go on the lamb.  He loses all of his possessions.  Bummer – this guy was a big shot not that long ago.  But never fear – the king is killed in some palace intrigue.

CHAPTER 2

Tobit is back, and it’s time for the festival of the Pentecost, a big thing from the Torah.  So Tobit tells his son to bring in a poor person to share their feast.  Because Tobit is still such an incredibly good guy.

Instead, Tobiah finds a dead person.  This horrifies Tobit and they bury him, a fact that earns insults from those around him.  (It isn’t clear if the derides are Jews or not).  He still hasn’t learned his lesson!  He’s still burying the dead!  The sucker! 

As bad as things have gone for Tobit, they’re about to get worse, though.  He loses his eyesight.  He loses it in a rather icky way, too.  He lays asleep, and some birds above him crap into his eyes.  So long, eyesight, as we’re told the droppings form white scales on his eyes. 

Now Tobit must rely on his wife to provide for him, and she gets a job weaving cloth, “doing the kind of work women do.”  She is really good and gets a bonus at the job – a goat!  When she brings the goat home, Tobit is a dick, accusing her of stealing it.  He insists she return it, even when she tells him what happened.  Fed up, she says, “Where are your charitable deeds now?  Where are your righteous acts?  All that has happened to you is well known!”

I guess Tobit doesn’t like being an object of pity and charity, but that’s the hand life has dealt him.  I guess we’re supposed to feel really blue for him and his plight, and to some extent I do, but the author shouldn’t have put that line right after he acted like a dick.  Right before his wife said that, my sympathies were more with her than him.  For once, he wasn’t such a great guy, and that’s when our sympathies are supposed to be at their maximum for him?  I dunno – it doesn’t quite work like that.

CHAPTER 3

Apparently, his wife’s shot at Tobit has broken the old man at last.  This chapter begins with a sobbing Tobit praying for death.  No, really – there is a poem titled, “Tobit’s Prayer for Death.”  He admits his sins and wrongdoings, admits those of his people, and prays to God to put him out of his misery.  This is depressing and affecting stuff.  Whatever ill will I had toward him for his churlishness to his wife evaporated.  This guy is at the end of his rope. 

And then, we shift scenes to Sarah.  She lives in a different place entirely, but (I’ll learn later on) is a relative of Tobit.  Apparently, the same day that Tobit reached the end of his hope, she did likewise.  You see, Sarah is an unfortunate soul.  Oh, she’s good and pious and pretty and all things good – but she is also cursed by a demon that is haunting her.  This demon – Asmodeus is his name – keeps appearing on her wedding night and killing her husbands before their weddings can be consummated.  What is the demon’s motivation?  Does he want Sarah?  Pure malice?  We don’t know, the Bible never says. But the point is Sarah has had seven husbands, and is still a virgin.  Man, seven dead husbands?  That must leave a mark on her mentally.

Well, her maid reproaches her now.  We don’t know why now, but it is now.  The maid tells Sarah its all her fault that they all die, and she should never bare children.  Sarah is taken aback.  I can only imagine what guilt or bad feelings she must carry around at all times, and now it’s aggressively thrown in her face.  Now Sarah wants to die.

She’s serious about it, too and considers suicide.  The only reason she doesn’t is because she thinks what her suicide would do to her parents: “thus would I bring my farther laden with sorrow in his old age to Hades.  It is far better for me not to hang myself but to beg the Lord that I might die.”  So, like Tobit, and on the same day, a reproach causes her to pray for death – and for the second time this chapter we get a poem that’s a good person praying for death. 

Apparently, the prayer is about the exact same time as Tobit’s for both reach God.  And God decides to take action.  Enough of the depressing stuff – God sends the angel Raphael out to solve the problems.  And in 2 verses, we get the plot of the rest of the chapter summarized.  Raphael will see to it that Tobit regains his sight, Sarah will marry Tobiah and they’ll get rid of the wicked demon Asmodeus. 

This demon guy – I suppose that’s a big part of the reason why this book isn’t in the Jewish or Protestant Bibles.  There is folk belief around the world in demons and evil spirits inhabiting the earth and screwing things up for people.  It isn’t clear what role this demon plays in the divine order – he’s just a lingering folk belief.  It’s probably a popular story with the masses – hence why it was well known enough and lasting enough for Catholics to Bible-ize it, but it’s not quite up to snuff for many Jewish priests or Protestant ministers, and so not in their canon.

CHAPTER 4

Now that Tobit has prayed for death, he’s thinking of what’ll happen to his son. He doesn’t have much to give him, but he knows he has some money he left with his relative Gabael in Media.  Tobiah doesn’t know about it, so Tobit tells him about it and sends him off to get it.

Before Tobiah goes, dead old dad gives some parting bits of advice, and that makes up almost all of this chapter.  The advice is a mixed of nice, holy words of wisdom – discipline yourself, avoid idleness, give alms to people in proposition to what you have, etc.  All sorts of nice holy stuff.  Speaking of holy stuff, the kid should always keep the Lord in mind, just as his dad did.

But a big point the father stresses is don’t marry a foreign woman.  Only marry someone who is not only a Jew, but also “of your own ancestral family.”  Wait – what?  Why?  That seems to be a bit much.  Tobit explains it by saying, “We are descendents of the prophets” and then points to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as some that married their own kindred and received God’s blessing.  OK, this is getting weird.  True, those guys married some of their relatives (Sarah was Abraham’s half-sister!) but ever since Moses there have been rules about that sort of thing, and Tobit – normally so good at following all of those rules, is stressing something even older than Moses’ laws. 

This is probably another reason why this book is kicked out of most Bibles.  Not only does Tobit say this, but sure enough Tobiah will marry his relative, Sarah.  I don’t really know how closely they are related – and it might be far enough to be allowable, but this insistence on marrying kin is … off.

Anyhow, while this is nominally words of advice for the son before he goes on a journey, the overall sense is that this is Tobit’s last words of advice.  He doesn’t know if he’ll ever see his son again, and wants to give lots of good advice.  That’s why he goes on so much about things that really won’t relate to the journey, like marriage and giving alms.

CHAPTER 5

Enter Raphael.  Tobit wants his son to have someone go with him to Media and back.  After all, the kid doesn’t know the way.  So Raphael (posing as a regular human) makes himself available and gets the job. 

Tobit wants to meet this guy his son will go off with.  Raphael introduces himself saying, “Joyful greetings to you!” and Tobit replies that he has no joy left, an old blind man waiting for death.  Man, that’s like something out a movie it’s so stereotypically downbeat.  At any rate, Tobit wants to know what family Raphael is from and then angel tries to dodge the question before saying something agreeable to Tobit.  That’s right – the angel lies.  He lies to Tobit about his family.  After all, he can’t say he’s an angel.  He claims he’s from a family Tobit knew back in the day. 

Tobit sends the boy and angel off.  Then Tobit’s wife starts weeping, afraid that she’ll never see him again.  Why send him away for a bit of money?  It’s only money.  Y’know, some of these little scenes are affecting. It can easily be left out – the mother is just a side character.  But you can feel her pain.  After all, she’s been given no say in this decision, she just has to accept it.  And her son could be killed or die of natural causes.  Things liked that happened back in the day. 

Tobit cheers her up, saying that a good angel will go with him.  Oh, that’s truer than he knows.  And what a clunky anvil, Bible!

CHAPTER 6

This chapter is the journey.  Along the way, Tobiah is attacked by a river monster in the Tigris.  Yeah, that’s interesting.  The angel Raphael knows what to do, and everything is cool.  In fact, Raphael tells Tobiah to take the gall, heart, and liver – they’re good medicine.  Apparently, the liver and heart can make a smoke that will cause a demon to flee (must be a really smelly smoke!)  The gall can help someone with bird shit in this eyes regain sight.  So this Bible book really isn’t aiming at suspense at all, is it?  We know how the rest will play out.

Sure enough, they arrive and Raphael tells Tobiah some more instructions.  Specifically, he tells the kid to marry Sarah.  She’s nice, pretty, wise, courageous, her dad is a good man – and she’s your closest relative, kid. 

Wait – what?  They’re not only related but …closest relatives? OK, between this and the demon, I can tell why this was left out of most Bibles. 

Tobiah isn’t interested, though.  He’s heard about her – she’s the woman whose husbands keep dying on the wedding night.  Hey, apparently she’s famous in the region.  Bummer for her.  (I wonder why husband #7 married her?  Death wish?  I guess she’s just that hot). 

But Raphael has an answer to Tobiah’s hedging – remember your dad’s advice: marry inside the family.  Wait – how did Raphael know that?  That was before he met Tobiah.  And I don’t know if Tobit meant for his son to get hitched on this trip, but regardless that’s what’ll happen. 

Raphael, naturally, has a plan how to solve things.  Make the smoke for the demon to drive him away.  And then, before you have sex with her, both of you should pray to God for mercy and protection.  Man, that sounds like some kind of mood killer right there. 

By the way, this book has some really, really long verses.  The last verse is (counts) 126 words long.  Maybe that’s one of the signs it was written later. 

Also, Raphael has a bit too much of the action here.  Tobiah is essentially the main character (even if his dad is the title character) and Tobiah just does what he’s told.  He doesn’t have much agency himself, which is unfortunately.  One of my beliefs is that the Bible is at its best when its at its most human, and the big human is a bit of a cipher.  There are great moments, but they are everyone else’s moments – Tobit, Tobit’s wife, Sarah – but not Tobiah. 

CHAPTER 7

So the travelers arrive and when Raguel (Sarah’s father) realizes who Tobiah is, he’s stoked to see him.  He jumps up, kisses him, and breaks into tears.  Man, even Raguel upstages Tobiah in this book. 

Oh, and apparently Sarah and Tobiah are second cousins.  So their marriage would be fine with Moses’ laws, a point made repeatedly here.  So that’s not the reason why the Jews and Protestants leave it out of the Bible. It’s the demon and the way it seemed more like just a fictional story than anything related to the main thrust of the Bible of the Jewish people. Still, the story of marrying your relative sure sounds funny to modern ears.

Quickly, the engagement happens.  As fits the standards of the time, Sarah herself isn’t involved.  Tobiah wants to go through the dad, as was the custom.  Actually, Tobiah wants Raphael to approach the dad for him, but the dad overhears.  Man, even here Tobiah is a non-entity.  Sarah doesn’t find out that she’s engaged for an eighth time until the end of the story.

Question: how old is Sarah anyway?  Old enough to be engaged eight times, and old enough for stories of her wedding nights hell is known for a few days travel at least.  Meanwhile, Tobiah comes off as a green kid.  

Click here for the second half of Tobit.