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Tobit

About this book
Chapter 3

1 And I was much grieved in my soul and groaned and wept. And I began to pray with groanings: 2 O Lord, you are righteous, and all your works are righteous,⁠ and all your ways are mercy and truth: you judge the world. 3 And now, O Lord, remember me, and look upon me; and do not take vengeance on me for my sins, both for my ignorances and my fathers’.⁠ 4 They sinned against you and disobeyed your commandments, and you gave us for spoil and captivity, and death, and for a proverb and a by-word and a reproach among all the nations among whom you did disperse us. 5 And now your many judgments are true in exacting from me the penalty of my sins, because we did not keep your commandments and did not walk truly before you. 6 And now deal with me according to your pleasure, and command my spirit to be taken from me, that I may be released from off the earth and become earth:⁠ for it is more profitable for me to die than to live, because I have heard false reproaches, and there is much sorrow in me.⁠ Lord, command that I be released from this distress, let me go to the everlasting place, and do not turn your face, O Lord, away from me. For it is more profitable for me to die, than to see much distress in my life, and not to hear reproaches.

Sarah's Distress and Prayer

7 On this day it happened to Sarah the daughter of Raguel who was in Ecbatana of Media, that she also heard reproaches by one of her father’s maidservants; 8 because that she had been given to seven husbands, and Asmodaeus the evil demon had slain them, before they had been with her as it is appointed for women.⁠ And the maidservant said to her, It is you that slay your husbands; behold you have already been given to seven husbands, and you have not been named of one of them.⁠ 9 Why do you scourge us on account of your husbands because they have died? Go your -o ways with them and let us see neither son nor daughter of yours for ever. 10 In that day she was grieved in her soul and wept; and she went up into her father’s upper room,⁠ and desired to hang herself; and again she considered and said, No, lest they reproach my father; and shall say to him, You had one beloved daughter, and she has hanged herself because of her calamities! and I shall bring down my father's old age with sorrow to Hades. It is fitter for me not to hang myself, but to supplicate the Lord that I may die and no longer hear reproaches during my life. 11 At the very same time she stretched forth her hands towards the window and prayed, and said, Blessed are you, merciful God, and blessed is your name for ever: and let all your works bless you for ever. 12 And now to you my face and my eyes I lift up: 13 command that I be released from the earth, and that I no more hear reproaches. 14 You know, Master, that I am pure from all uncleanness with man, 15 and that I never polluted my name, nor the name of my father either, in the land of my captivity. I am the only daughter of my father, and he has no other child to be his heir, nor has he kinsman near him, nor has he relation, that I should keep myself for a wife to him. Seven husbands of my are dead already; and why should it be mine to live on? And if it pleases you not to slay me—O Lord, now hear my reproach.

Raphael Is Sent to Heal Tobit and Sarah

16 At the very same time the prayer of both was heard before the glory of God.⁠ 17 And Raphael was sent to heal them both: the case of Tobit to remove the white films from his eyes, that he might see the light of God with his eyes; and in the case of Sarah the daughter of Raguel, to give her for a wife to Tobias the son of Tobit, and to unbind Asmodaeus the evil demon from her; because it belonged to Tobias that he should inherit her rather than all those which wished to take her, At that time did Tobit return from the courtyard into his house, and Sarah the daughter of Raguel herself also came down from the upper chamber.

Texts in conversation

Compare Genesis 3:19 and Tobit 3:6

Hebrew Bible · Deuterocanon

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Summary

Tobit uses language from Genesis that describes humans returning to dust, connecting his sorrow to the story of Adam’s curse. Tobit uses this language to depict the universal nature of suffering and to also connect its story with Biblical traditions.

Passages

Genesis 3:19

Hebrew Bible
17 But to Adam he said, “Because you obeyed the voice of52 your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ the ground is cursed because of you; in painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, but you will eat the grass of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you will return.” 20 The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all the living. 21 The Lord God made garments from skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Genesis

Tobit 3:6

Deuterocanon
5 And now your many judgments are true in exacting from me the penalty of my sins, because we did not keep your commandments and did not walk truly before you. 6 And now deal with me according to your pleasure, and command my spirit to be taken from me, that I may be released from off the earth and become earth: for it is more profitable for me to die than to live, because I have heard false reproaches, and there is much sorrow in me. Lord, command that I be released from this distress, let me go to the everlasting place, and do not turn your face, O Lord, away from me. For it is more profitable for me to die, than to see much distress in my life, and not to hear reproaches.
225–175 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Tobit

References

"... blossoming of almonds, breaking open of the caper, and the engorged grasshopper could also be images of springtime. In such a case they would function to provide a contrast between the fate of nature and that of humans. Natural images opened the sage’s discussion (e.g. 1:2-9) and now the sage draws conclusions on the basis of nature’s cycles: “there is nothing new under the sun.” Job makes a similar assumption about nature’s cycles when he asks about the fate of a tree: “For there is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease.” “But mortals die, and are laid low; humans expire, and where are they?”(Job 14:7,10). The sage’s conclusion in verse 5 seems related. Unlike the cycles in nature, humans go to their eternal home: death (See Tobit 3:6 for the same image and its reference to death) ... Verse 7 solidifies the references to death by using two familiar biblical images: “dust” and “breath” or “spirit”. That the dust returns to the earth recalls both Genesis 2:7 and 3:19; (compare Ecclesiastes 3:20). In Genesis 3:19 it stands as the symbol of humanness: humans are made of dust and to dust they return. Readers may also remember that Abraham denigrates himself by applying the symbol (Genesis 18:27). Job’s friends also denigrate humankind using the imagery of dust as a symbol of inferiority (Job 4:19; compare 8:9) ..."
Milton P. Horne, The Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary: Proverbs-Ecclesiastes (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2003), 536–537.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Genesis 3:19 and Tobit 3:6

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