Tobit 1-3

Ok, back to our regularly scheduled programming . . .

The Book of Tobit feels different to me than anything I've read so far in the Old Testament. Somehow the style of the prose and the tone just hit me in a way that nothing before has. It feels more, I don't know, modern. In a good way.

When I was a freshman in Catholic high school, attending Catholic school of any kind for the first time, my religion teacher was a little old nun named Sr. Georgine. She was small and soft-spoken, but tough. She struck fear in our hearts--mine at least. She tried to teach us to meditate in prayer, but she would occasionally fall asleep during those lessons. She took a swing at a couple of boys who misbehaved in the class, too. Ah, the good old days.

Anyway, Sr. Georgine began our year of Bible study with, you guessed it, the Book of Tobit. 

Tobit is an Israelite, in exile in Nineveh. He is virtuous and kind. A charitable man. He has remained faithful to the Law of Moses, following the commands and worshipping and honoring only the one true God. Some of his charitable actions, in particular burying the dead, get him in trouble with the authorities, and he is briefly forced into hiding. While in hiding, his property is confiscated, leaving him with only his wife, his son, and some money he had deposited with a kinsman of his in another town. The political situation changes, and he is able to return home to his family and his virtuous ways. But his fortunes shift yet again. More charitable works lead to more trouble. His neighbors and even his wife mock and insult him. And to make matters worse, birds poop in his eyes and blind him. Yuch. Overcome with grief and sorrow, Tobit prays to the Lord for death. "All your ways are mercy and truth," Tobit declares, but he feels he can go on no longer. It is not hunger or physical pain or poverty that lead him to despair, but the calumnies and insults of those around him that he cannot bear. 

Meantime, in another town, we find Sarah. Sarah has married seven times, only to have each new husband killed by a wicked demon on the wedding night, before the marriage could be consummated. Cruelly teased by people around her, Sarah, in her misery and grief, resolves to hang herself. She is stopped, however, by the realization that her suicide will bring shame and dishonor to her father. Like Tobit, she too prays for death to relieve her from her misery, but adds that if the Lord elects not to take her life, she prays that the Lord "look favorably upon me and have pity on me."

The Lord hears the prayers of Tobit and Sarah, and dispatches an angel, Raphael, "to heal them both."  The early part of this story brings to mind my very favorite movie, It's a Wonderful Life, although there the angel was, of course, named Clarence.