The Book Of Tobit
INTRODUCTION
The book of Tobit, originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic, is a story which tells of the miraculous help to God's faithful people and teaches Jewish piety and morality.
The book offers a vivid picture of Jewish religion and culture in the period prior to the New testament.
Outline of Contents
Tobit in Nineveh and Sarah in Media suffer and pray ( 1.1-3.15 )
There prayers are answered ( 3.16-11.18 )
a) In answer to their prayers God sends the angel Raphael 3.16, 17
b) Tobit gives advise to his son, Tobias 4.1-21
c) Raphael travels with Tobias to media 5.1-7.12
d) Tobias marries Sarah 7.13-9.6
e) Raphael returns with Tobias and Sarah, and cures To it's blindness 10.1-11.18
The angel Raphael reveals who he is 12.1-22
Tobit praises God and gives advice to Tobias 13.1-14.15
Chapter 1
¹ I am Tobit and this is the story of my life. My father was Tobiel, my grandfather was Aduel. Aduel's father was Gabael, his grandfather was Raphael; and his great-grandfather was Raguel; who belonged to the clan of Asiel, a part of the tribe of Naphtali.
² During the time that Shalmanesser was emperor of Assyria, I was taken captive in my home town of Thisbe, located in northern Galilee, south of Kadesh in Naphtali, north-west of Hazor, and north of Phogor.
Tobit's Early Life
³ All my life I have been honest and have tried to do what was right. I have often given money to help needy relatives and fellow Jews who were deported with me to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria.
⁴When I was young, I lived in northern Israel. All the tribes in Israel were supposed to offer sacrifices in Jerusalem. It was the one city that God had chosen from among all the Israelite cities as the place where his Temple was to be built for his holy and eternal home.
But my entire tribe of Naphtali rejected the city of Jerusalem and the kings descended from from David. ⁵ Like everyone else in this tribe, my own family used to go to the city of Dan in the mountains of northern Galilee to offer sacrifices to the gold bull-calf which king Jeroboam of Israel had set up there.
Tobit's Faithfulness to His Religion
⁶ I was the only one in my family who regularly went to Jerusalem to celebrate the religious festivals, as the Law of Moses commands everyone to do. I would hurry off to Jerusalem with the first part of my harvest, the first-born of my animals, a tenth of my cattle, and the freshly clipped wood from my sheep. Then I would stand before the alter in the
I would hurry off to Jerusalem with the first part of my harvest (1.6) |
Temple, and give these offerings to the priests, the descendants of Aaron. ⁷I would give a tenth of my grain, wine, olive-oil, pomegranates, figs, and other fruits to the Levites who served God in Jerusalem. Every year, except the seventh year when the land was at rest, I would sell a second tenth of my possessions and spend the money in Jerusalem on the festival meal.
⁸ But every third year, I would give tithe to the widows and orphans and the foreigners living among my people, and we would eat the festival meal together. I did this in keeping with the Law of Moses, which Deborah, the mother of my grandfather Ananiel, had taught me to obey. (I had been left an orphan when my father died.)
Tobit's Faithfulness In Exile
⁹ When I grew up, I married Anna, a member of my own tribe. We had a son and named him Tobias. ¹⁰ Later, I was taken captive and deported to Assyria, and that is how I came to live in Nineveh.
While we live in Nineveh, all my relatives and fellow Jews used to eat the same kind of food as the other people who lived there, ¹¹but I refused to do so.
¹² Since I took seriously the commandments of the Most High God, ¹³ he made Emperor Shalmanesser respect me, and I was placed in charge of purchasing all the emperor's supplies.
¹⁴ Before the emperor died, I made regular visits to the land of Media to buy things for him there.
Once, when I was in the city of Rages in Media, I left some bags of money there with Gabael, Gabrias's brother, and asked him to keep them for me. There were more than 300 kilogrammes of silver coins in those bags.
¹⁵ When Shalmanesser died, his son sennacherib succeeded him as emperor. It soon became so dangerous to travel on the roads in Media that I could no longer go there.
Tobit Buries the Dead
¹⁶ While Shalmanesser was still emperor, I took good care of my fellow Jews whenever they were in need. ¹⁷ If they were hungry, I shared my food with them; if they needed clothes, I gave them the some of my own. Whenever I saw that the dead body of one of my people had been thrown outside the city wall, I gave it a decent burial.
¹⁸ One day Sennacherib cursed God, the King of Heaven; God punished him, and Sennacherib had to retread from Judah. On his way back to Media he was so furious that he killed many Israelites.
But I secretly removed the bodies and buried them; and when Sennacherib later searched for the bodies, he could not find them.
¹⁹ Then someone from Nineveh told the emperor that I was the one who had been burying his victims. As soon as I realized that the emperor knew all about me and that my life was in danger, I became frightened. So I ran away and hid.
²⁰ Everything I owned was seized and put in the royal treasury. My wife Anna and my son Tobias were all I had left.
Tobit's Nephew Rescues Him
²¹ About six weeks later, two of Sennacherib's sons assassinated him and then escaped to the mountains of Ararat. Another son, Esarhaddon, became emperor and put Ahikar, my brother Anael's son, in charge of all the financial affairs of the emperor.
²²This was actually the second time Ahikar was appointed to this position, for when Sennacherib was emperor of Assyria, Ahikar had been wine steward, treasurer, and accountant, and had been in charge of the official seal. Since Aikar was my nephew, he put in good word for me with the emperor, and I was allowed to return to Nineveh.