SESSION NINE: Getting Deeper 4:1-19

The story switches back to Tobit but doesn’t immediately switch back to the first person in this passage. We see the real character of Tobit in this passage as he prepares his son, Tobiah, for his impending death, for which we earlier found him praying. Tobit seeks to pass along wisdom to his son in a series of wise maxims. This is consistent with other death bed discourses or testaments found in the Old Testament, for instance in Genesis 49 by the Patriarch Jacob, Deuteronomy 33 by Moses, and Judges 23-24 by Joshua. This speech is triggered both by Tobit’s dire state of life and because he suddenly remembers the money he left with his relative hundreds of miles away in Rages, Gabael, which you might remember from the first session.

I have (somewhat arbitrarily) broken Tobit’s speech into six distinct but interrelated parts. In the first paragraph, (third paragraph of the present reading), Tobit talks about the importance of honoring his mother and taking care of her. He mentions her “many trials”, an allusion to her giving birth to him. The love Tobit feels for his wife (who will be a source of frustration for him in future sessions) is apparent in his desire that she be buried with him.

The second topic in the next paragraph deals with giving alms and good works. He exhorts his son to give alms and not to tread the paths of “wrongdoing.” A literal translation of this would be someone with an “evil eye”, an allusion to Proverbs 23:6 which says, “Do not eat the bread of a man with an evil eye.” There is a reciprocal notion to almsgiving in Tobit. If you do good works, good works will be done for you. A very ironic statement would be “almsgiving frees one from death”, especially since Tobit has given alms his whole life but is now expecting to die.

The third topic is that of marriage and the importance of marrying within the tribe. One commentator said, “Both endogamy (i.e. marriage confined to a specific group by custom or law) and exogamy (i.e. marriage outside a specific group) were practiced throughout Israel’s history, sometimes side by side; at other times, one of the other predominated (endogamy, for instance, being the norm in the patriarchal age.). However, exactly what constituted a “foreign woman” was subject to interpretation. Some of Israel’s most famous heroes practiced exogamy by marrying Gentile women, e.g., Joseph (Genesis 41-45), Moses (Exodus 2:21), Gibeon (Judges 8:31, and Samson (Judges 14:2), not to mention Solomon (1 Kings 11:1-3). Unlike Samson’s parents who would have been content for their son to marry an Israelite, Tobit, like the patriarchs insisted that his son marry within the paternal tribe.”[1] The reason had to do with where our hero is; in exile! It’s as though Tobit is saying, “Don’t marry these pagans who have taken us captive but, instead, marry one of us.” I’m spending a significant amount of time on this, obviously, because it will come back later to be providential.

Fourthly, Tobit returns to the subject of money in what may be called: how to treat your neighbor. He and Jesus are of one mind in the story of the generous landowner (Matthew 20:1-15), for instance, in which the landowner pays all his workers at the end of the day. Also, the famous Tobit idiom “Do to no one what you yourself dislike” would be better translated “what you hate”. It precedes the statements of Jesus in Matthew 7 and Luke 6 “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.”

The fifth topic deals with food and drink and proves that wine was an aspect of life of the Middle East even before wedding feast of Cana from the beginning of the gospel of John. The practical advice that Jesus gives about sharing food with the poor seems to return to the subject of alms.

Lastly, Tobit counsels Tobit to find another mentor, a most practical suggestion since he now believes he is at the end of his life. There is a very intriguing phrase translated here as “Be lavish with your bread and wine at the burial of the virtuous…” It probably doesn’t mean to share your food with the dead, despite what some commentators believe but points to sharing food with the relatives of the dead. Nonetheless, a literal translation seems to say, “Pour your wine at the grave of the righteous…” Finally, Tobit exhorts Tobiah to praise God and trust in him as well.

In the end, we can imagine this obedient son listening to the wisdom of his son while his father believes he is passing on his last bit of advice. The reader knows that Raphael is on his way to save the day but it is, nonetheless, important to imagine poor Tobiah frustrated at his Father’s bedside unable to help hearing what he expects to be the last bit of wisdom but still ready to do whatever his Father wants him to do.

[1] Moore, Carey. Tobit Anchor Bible Commentary Bantam, Doubleday, Bell Publishing co. c 1996 p. 169