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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 3:8 and Testament of Solomon 22

Deuterocanon · Pseudepigrapha, Testaments

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Summary

Tobit and the Testament of Solomon describe the demon Asmodeus attacking newlyweds before their marriage is consummated. The Testament adds that he was born from an angel and a human, connecting him to the giants found in traditions such as 1 Enoch.

Passages

Tobit 3:8

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

Testament of Solomon 22

Pseudepigrapha, Testaments
22 On hearing this, I, Solomon, tightened his bonds and commanded him to be flogged with ox-hide strips, demanding that he humbly tell me his name and his business. He replied, 'I am Asmodeus among mortals, and my business is to plot against the newlyweds, so that they may not consummate their marriage. I sever them completely through various calamities and drain the beauty of virgin women, turning their hearts away.'
100–900 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Testament of Solomon

References

"... This reconstructed etiology explains how it is that the giants could become so openly identified as demons at a later stage ... see the Testament of Solomon 5:3 and 17:1. In 5:3 (within the section 5:1–11), the author reinterprets the demon Asmodaeus – this is a deliberate reference to the Book of Tobit that follows the longer recension (compare Codex Sinaiticus at 3:7–8, 17; 6:14–15, 17; 8:2–3; 12:15) – one born from a human mother and an angel. In the latter text (in the passage 17:1–5) the demonic power thwarted by Jesus (in an allusion to Mark 5:3) is identified as having been one of the giants who died in the internecine conflicts (compare 1 Enoch 7:5 and 10:12). Similarly, Pseudo-Clementine Homilies 8.12–18 refers to the giants, which are designed as both “bastards” and “demons” in the ante-diluvian phase of their existence. Here they are said to have survived the Flood in the form of disembodied “large souls” whose post-diluvian activities are proscribed through “a certain righteous law” given them through an angel ..."
Loren T. Stuckenbruck, The Myth of Rebellious Angels: Studies in Second Temple Judaism and New Testament Texts (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 15–16.

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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Tobit 3:8 and Testament of Solomon 22

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