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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 Tobit 3:7 and Protoevangelium of James 2

Deuterocanon · Early Christian

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Summary

Early Christian tradition in the Protoevangelium of James describes Anna, Mary’s mother, being criticized by her servant for being childless, echoing a moment in Tobit where Sarah is insulted by her maid after repeated failed marriages.

Passages

Tobit 3:7

Deuterocanon
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.
225–175 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Tobit

Protoevangelium of James 2

Early Christian · Gospel of James
2 And his wife, Anna, mourned with two kinds of grief and lamented with two types of sorrow, saying: “I will weep for my widowhood; I will weep for my childlessness.” The great day of the Lord was approaching, and Judith, her maidservant, said: “How long will you torment yourself? Look, the great day of the Lord is near, and it is unlawful for you to mourn. Take this headband, which was given to me by the woman who made it. It is not fitting for me to wear because I am a maidservant, and it has a royal look to it.” But Anna replied: “Leave me alone; I have not done such things, and the Lord has humbled me greatly. I fear that some wicked person has given it to you, and now you’ve come to make me share in your sin.” Judith answered: “Why should I curse you when the Lord has closed your womb, preventing you from bearing fruit in Israel?” Anna, deeply grieved, took off her mourning clothes, cleaned her head, and put on her wedding garments. Around the ninth hour, she went down to the garden to take a walk. She saw a laurel tree, sat under it, and prayed to the Lord, saying: “God of our ancestors, bless me and hear my prayer, just as You blessed the womb of Sarah and gave her a son, Isaac.”
150–200 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Protoevangelium of James

References

"... An often overlooked narrative reception of Tobit can be seen in the Protevangelium of James (end of second century?) whose story about the maiden Judith blaming Anna for her childlessness (Protevangelium of James 2:2–4) strongly reminds of Tobit’s story about Sarah being slandered by her maidens (Tobit 3:7–10) ..."
Tobias Nicklas, “The Apocrypha in the History of Early Christianity,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha, ed. Gerbern S. Oegema (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), 52–73.

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Tobit 3:7 and Protoevangelium of James 2

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