Tobit
The book of Tobit was probably written in the second century BCE. The author is unknown.
1-2. Tobit says that he has ‘walked all the days of his life in truth and justice’ and that he continues to worship God even when his tribe sacrificed to Baal. As a young man he was taken from Jerusalem as a captive to Nineve then Media, where he continued to worship, give alms to the brethren, bread to the hungry, clothes to the naked, and properly buried the dead. One evening, however, after sleeping in his courtyard, ‘sparrows muted warm dung into mine eyes’ and Tobit became blind. It's bizarre how Tobit's blindness is attributed to a sparrow, but his later cure (sorry to give the story away) is attributed to God. It's the same as when eighty people die in a plane crash and one is 'miraculously' saved. Why is God responsible for the one person 'saved' and not the deaths?
3. Tobit tells God that he doesn’t want to live. We then learn of Sara, elsewhere in Media, who had been married to seven husbands, all of whom had been killed by an evil spirit, Asmodeus. Sara prays to God, telling Him that she doesn’t want to live. God sends an angel, Raphael, to heal Tobit’s eyes and give Sara to Tobit’s son, Tobias, as his wife.
4-5. Tobit gives his son instructions on what to do after his death, where to bury him, to honour his mother, give to the poor, do not marry into another tribe for that will bring destruction, and fear God. Tobit remembers money that he had saved and given to a man by the name of Gabael and sends his son to retrieve it. Tobias takes a guide with him on the journey, who unbeknown to Tobias, is the angel Raphael. They set out to find Gabael. Tobias’ mother chastises Tobit for sending his only son on the journey but Tobit says that he will return safely.
6. On the journey they stop at the river Tigris. When Tobias goes to the river bank, a fish leaps out and ‘would have devoured him’, but doesn’t, and Raphael tells Tobias to draw it onto the land, open it, take out its heart, liver and gall, and keep these organs safe. Raphael tells Tobias that the heart and liver will drive away demons and the gall will heal blindness. Tobias expresses to Raphael his fear that he may die if he marries Sara – like her previous seven husbands. The angel tells him he’ll be OK if he roasts the heart and liver of the fish on some ashes, because the devil will smell it and run away. Hilarious.
7-10. Sara’s father, Raguel, gives Sara to Tobias as his wife. Tobias lights the fish’s heart and liver, the demon flees to Egypt, and Tobias survives the night. Raguel orders his servants to fill in the grave he had ordered for Tobias as it is no longer needed. Tobias sends Raphael to obtain his father’s money from Gabael and escort Gabael to his wedding with Sara. After the wedding, Tobias leaves with his new wife, her dowry, and Raphael (who he still doesn’t know is an angel) and heads back to his parents, who, due to the delay, think he might be dead.
11-14. Tobias returns to a joyous reunion, and on the advice of Raphael anoints his father’s eyes with the fish’s gall bladder which cures his father’s blindness. Tobit praises God. Raphael then reveals his true identity - an angel sent by God; his mission - to heal Tobit and bring Sara into his family. Everyone promptly falls ‘upon their faces’, but when they look up Raphael has gone. Tobit praises God and ‘declares his might and majesty to a sinful nation’. At the end of Tobit’s life he advises his children and grandchildren to leave the city of Nineve because the ‘things which the prophet Jonas (Jonah) spake shall surely come to pass’. After burying his parents, Tobias moves to Media, and later hears that Nineve has been taken and destroyed by its enemies. In the book of Jonah, Jonah preached the destruction of Nineve for its ‘wicked ways’, but this didn’t eventuate as God changed his mind.
The book of Tobit is a story of love, loyalty, the intervention of angels, and fishy cures.
I suspect that God and Jesus are credited in the Bible with less than a dozen cures for blindness. To put this in perspective, the number of eye operations performed by Fred Hollows and the Fred Hollows Foundation that have cured blindness throughout Asia, Africa and the Pacific would be well over a hundred thousand.
Back to 2 Esdras. Forward to Judith.