[This starts on 2 because last week ended on Tobit 6:1, which just said that Tobiah’s mother stopped crying, after Tobit reassured her that an angel would watch over their son.]


2)  When the young man left home, accompanied by the angel, the dog followed Tobiah out and went along with them. Both journeyed along, and when the first night came, they camped beside the Tigris River.

COMMENTARY:  This shows some of the foreign influence that made this book suspect.  Prior to the captivity Jews kept working dogs as herd animals, but did not keep them around the home as pets, considering them unclean.  Tobit had an office job, and his wife wove; neither of them herded for their livelihood, yet here they are with a family dog.

         Some might consider this a corruption, others an improvement.  A third way of looking at it might be a weeding-process: the captivity forced people to examine which rules mattered most to them.  Tobit apparently felt that so long as he didn’t eat the dog, no harm could come of keeping a loyal protector around.

         For the record, their route would actually take them nowhere near the Tigris, which lies west of Ninevah.  But the story has symbolic rather than historic importance. It required a body of water for a fish to appear.

3) When the young man went down to wash his feet in the Tigris River, a large fish leaped out of the water and tried to swallow his foot. He shouted in alarm. 4) But the angel said to the young man, “Grab the fish and hold on to it!” He seized the fish and hauled it up on dry land. 5) The angel then told him: “Slit the fish open and take out its gall, heart, and liver, and keep them with you; but throw away the other entrails. Its gall, heart, and liver are useful for medicine.” 6) After Tobiah had slit the fish open, he put aside the gall, heart, and liver. Then he roasted and ate part of the fish; the rest he salted and kept for the journey. Afterward the two of them traveled on together till they drew near to Media.

COMMENTARY:  This brings up an important concept:  That knowledge can be a gift of God.  More on that later.

         A Christian could see in this fish a symbol of Christ, as the early Christians used a stylized fish to signal to each other meeting-places and other ways of connecting.  Each letter of the Greek word for fish, “ichthys” (I being also used for J and both ch and th each being single letters) letter) could stand for “Jesus Christos Theou Yios Soter” or Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.”  (For more about this symbol, Wikipedia has an excellent article, starting with its Pagan roots, detailing the role of Fish in the Gospel, and continuing on to later church usage.)

         If we take the fish as a representation of Jesus, a Christian can see how Jesus can seize us in a sudden, alarming way, but that what initially frightens us can turn out to be a great blessing.

 
7) Then the young man asked the angel this question: “Brother Azariah, what medicine is in the fish’s heart, liver, and gall?” 8) He answered: “As for the fish’s heart and liver, if you burn them to make smoke in the presence of a man or a woman who is afflicted by a demon or evil spirit, any affliction will flee and never return.

COMMENTARY:  A smudge, in other words.  Smudges aren’t just used by Native Americans.

         The ancients considered the heart and liver the locations of life, love, thought, soul, everything that makes us who we are.  Catholics, seeing the fish as prefiguring Christ, can see this as symbolic of offering up Jesus Himself as a holocaust—the sacrifice that saves us from the powers of evil.

 9) As for the gall, if you apply it to the eyes of one who has white scales, blowing right into them, sight will be restored.”

COMMENTARY:  This might have actually worked if applied immediately after the bird-droppings hit Tobit’s eyes, because the alkaline gall would have neutralized the acid, preventing corneal injury.  It also might have some usefulness in dissolving cataracts.  It would probably take a miracle, however, to work years later.

         This makes a deeper point, however.  Doctors in the ancient world did use fish gall for some kinds of blindness, though not all doctors knew about it.  The important point, often missed, is that medicine and, by extension science, comes from God.  The fact that we have intelligence capable of discovering and developing cures and other solutions for our problems is God’s gift, and God can work through non-miraculous as well as miraculous means.  When we study science we explore how the Creator designed the universe.

         One could also make a point about the bitterness of gall.  Often our bitterest experiences can heal us of spiritual blindness, teaching us empathy, humility and compassion.

10) When they had entered Media and were getting close to Ecbatana,11) Raphael said to the young man, “Brother Tobiah!” He answered, “Here I am!” Raphael continued, “Tonight we must stay in the house of Raguel, who is a relative of yours. He has a beautiful daughter named Sarah, 12) but no other son or daughter apart from Sarah. Since you are Sarah’s closest relative, you more than any other have the right to marry her. Moreover, her father’s estate is rightfully yours to inherit. The girl is wise, courageous, and very beautiful; and her father is a good man who loves her dearly.”

COMMENTARY:  And so the set-up, the match made in Heaven.  I like that Raphael uses wisdom and courage as points of persuasion.  Tobiah’s not looking for a chattel, a silly little dependent to guide and protect, he’s looking for a partner whose advice he could respect and whose courage he could count on in hard times. 
        I still meet men today, many of them devout, who believe that some natural order dictates that men must be braver, smarter, and better providers than their wives, who have no role except to cook, keep house, and bear and raise children.  They think that families have always operated this way since time immemorial and anything else must be a modern fancy that flies against the tried and true.
        Not so!  When we go back to genuinely ancient times, we can see the silly little housewife as a luxury that few could afford.  Certainly such a creature couldn’t have survived the exile that Tobit and his people had to face, or for that matter the Exodus.  Nor could they have survived, before then, the hard realities of low-tech or pre-tech existence.

         The ideal wife has always had to be wise and courageous.  Anything less would make her a liability.

 13) He continued: “You have the right to marry her. So listen to me, brother. Tonight I will speak to her father about the girl so that we may take her as your bride. When we return from Rages, we will have the wedding feast for her. I know that Raguel cannot keep her from you or promise her to another man; he would incur the death penalty as decreed in the Book of Moses. For he knows that you, more than anyone else, have the right to marry his daughter. Now listen to me, brother; we will speak about this girl tonight, so that we may arrange her engagement to you. Then when we return from Rages, we will take her and bring her back with us to your house.”

COMMENTARY:  Although Numbers 36:6-8 prescribes that a woman with no brothers should marry within her own tribe so as to keep ancestral property within the family, it does not impose a death penalty, nor does it require endogamy for a woman with brothers.  But the exile had scattered Jews away from their prized educational system (they were the only people in the ancient world to require literacy for a boy to qualify as a man) and they had lost their scriptures, which they would only rediscover after their return and the restoration of the temple.  So they clung to whatever they had memorized and tried their best to live by whatever portions they knew.  Some discrepancies crept in along the way, later corrected with the uncovering of a Torah in the temple ruins.

 
14) But Tobiah said to Raphael in reply, “Brother Azariah, I have heard that she has already been given in marriage to seven husbands, and that they have died in the bridal chamber. On the very night they approached her, they would die. I have also heard it said that it was a demon that killed them. 15) So now I too am afraid of this demon, because it is in love with her and does not harm her; but it kills any man who wishes to come close to her. I am my father’s only child. If I should die, I would bring the life of my father and mother down to their grave in sorrow over me; they have no other son to bury them!”

COMMENTARY:  No wonder Sarah felt suicidal!  Rumors of her plight have spread beyond her own city and state clear to Ninevah.  And that meant a lot more in those days, considering the poor cross-country infrastructure.  The demon had made her notorious!

 
16)  Raphael said to him: “Do you not remember your father’s commands? He ordered you to marry a woman from your own ancestral family. Now listen to me, brother; do not worry about that demon. Take Sarah. I know that tonight she will be given to you as your wife!

COMMENTARY:  Angel won’t take no for an answer.  Those of us who believe in a divine plan often nevertheless argue against where it seems to head, giving our angels all kinds of hard work to wrestle us onto our best path.

17) When you go into the bridal chamber, take some of the fish’s liver and the heart, and place them on the embers intended for incense, and an odor will be given off. 18) As soon as the demon smells the odor, it will flee and never again show itself near her. Then when you are about to have intercourse with her, both of you must first get up to pray. Beg the Lord of heaven that mercy and protection be granted you. Do not be afraid, for she was set apart for you before the world existed. You will save her, and she will go with you. And I assume that you will have children by her, and they will be like brothers for you. So do not worry.”

When Tobiah heard Raphael’s words that she was his kinswoman, and of the lineage of his ancestral house, he loved her deeply, and his heart was truly set on her.

        And the second part complements this.  Prayer can anchor the lasting kind of love—especially prayer to bless the one beloved.  Raphael asks Tobiah to anchor his physical passion on the spiritual love and mercy of his Creator.  Notice that this book does not portray the physical and the spiritual as conflicting, but rather in partnership.  Here, in this marriage, prayer protects sexuality, and sexuality shows faith in prayer.