1)  When they had finished eating and drinking, they wanted to retire. So they brought the young man out and led him to the bedroom. 2) Tobiah, mindful of Raphael’s instructions, took the fish’s liver and heart from the bag where he had them, and put them on the embers intended for incense. 3) The odor of the fish repulsed the demon, and it fled to the upper regions of Egypt; Raphael went in pursuit of it and there bound it hand and foot. Then Raphael returned immediately.

COMMENTARY:  This does not describe a typical exorcism, either by Jewish or Christian tradition.  So what does it say symbolically?  That a force from the waters—the flow of life, the sustainer of the desert, the unconscious, the mystical—seized Tobias by the foot—his very foundation.  Catholics would see the fish as representing Christ.  The angel tells him to not kick it away but seize it, be nourished by it, and let it bring healing.  So here he offers up the life and blood, the mind and heart (the ancients thought that reason began in the liver, not the brain) of his salvation—Catholics would interpret this as the power of the Cross. 
        It smells bad to the demon, and probably to the humans as well.  And we’ve already discussed how this can symbolize accepting the messy, smelly aspects of marriage along with the good, in contrast to the false “love” of Asmodeus, who demands that everything be perfect.

        But take it a step further.  Why do Catholics value this story?  Because we see our church as the Bride of Christ, and this wedding as prophetic of our collective marriage to God.  And it’s not always privileged to marry Jesus, in the sense of getting pampered by God.  Driving the bad things out of our lives doesn’t always have a sweet smell to us.

         Think of Sarah.  She was an innocent victim, no doubt about it, but there could not help but be something darkly flattering about being the object of a supernatural being’s jealous desire.  And the more the public condemned her as  some sort of femme fatale for her serial widowhood, the more she would think that she had nobody to love her except Asmodeus.  So often the forces that destroy us—drugs and alcohol misuse, compulsive overeating, denial, the loneliness of self-righteousness, the drive to vengeance,  all manner of seductions—become our poisoned consolation in the very torment that they create.  We do not always choose the forces that become our demon-lovers, but we can, with prayer and loving support, choose to let go of them, even though this at first seems odious, even miserable—as miserable and seemingly messed-up as the stink of burning fish on our wedding night.

         We also see, in this passage, Raphael going into angel-mode, pursuing Asmodeus to Egypt and binding him.  The Israelites saw the desert as the haven of demons, and Egypt as a place of enslavers.  So he that once enslaved Sarah has himself become bound.

 
4) When Sarah’s parents left the bedroom and closed the door behind them, Tobiah rose from bed and said to his wife, “My sister, come, let us pray and beg our Lord to grant us mercy and protection.”

COMMENTARY:  Catholic scholars consider this the real exorcism, following upon the symbolic one.  With prayer, we believe, all things are possible.

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 5) She got up, and they started to pray and beg that they might be protected. He began with these words:

“Blessed are you, O God of our ancestors;

blessed be your name forever and ever!

Let the heavens and all your creation bless you forever.

COMMENTARY:  Once again we see that every prayer in this book begins with worship.  And so does the prayer of Jesus begin, “Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name!”  But how often we Christians skip this step and go straight into the “gimme” part of the prayer.  And then we curse God if we don’t get everything on our wish-list.  We have become materialistic and forgotten what The Sacred means, forgotten awe, and treat God as one more tool at our disposal in the conquest of everything we can grab, mistaking His generosity and mercy for a sign that He belongs to us.  Nope, we belong to Him.

6) You made Adam, and you made his wife Eve

to be his helper and support;

and from these two the human race has come.

You said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone;

let us make him a helper like himself.’

COMMENTARY:  Catholics traditionally use this passage in our marriage ceremonies.  And we also use this reference to call marriage the first sacrament.  This has a lot to do with why we treasure it so highly.

7) Now, not with lust,

but with fidelity I take this kinswoman as my wife.

Send down your mercy on me and on her,

and grant that we may grow old together.

Bless us with children.”

8) They said together, “Amen, amen!”

COMMENTARY:  This does not mean that lust is wrong between husband and wife (otherwise they couldn’t expect to be blessed with children!) but that it does not make a good primary motive to marry, and does not lead to much joy in growing old together.  But to begin with fidelity—that deep loyalty between two people—creates a foundation where growing old together becomes delicious.

         Tobiah also intends this prayer as an antidote to the selfish lust of Asmodeus, and the writer intends us to see the contrast between the right and wrong way to approach marriage.  Asmodeus didn’t care how much his “affection” hurt Sarah, how much it horrified her every time he killed someone for her.  Asmodeus fancied himself a spouse, but in fact he was a rapist—he wanted power over Sarah.

         Pope John Paul II tried to reference this in a sermon where he condemned Asmodean lust in marriage.  Anyone who heard the sermon through would have understood, when he spoke in the overtly stated context of men forcing wives who were tired or sick to perform sexually on command, that he meant the utter selfishness of spousal rape, of thinking that the wife exists only for the husband’s gratification and has no right to say no—a position held by too many who call themselves Christians.  He called it adultery to lust, in that selfish sense, after one’s wife, because the husband isn’t making love to his wife, there’s nothing loving at all about it, he’s making love to his own selfishness and hurting her in the process.

        Instead of understanding this, though, the newspapers (at least in America) attacked him for allegedly calling it adultery to desire one’s wife.  It didn’t fit their black and white narratives, dividing the world not only into left  and right, but into the narrow American satereotypes of these terms.  They had already put the Pope in the right wing camp, so they couldn’t imagine him saying anything feminist.

        Tobiah here is saying that he hasn’t driven the demon out only to replace him.  His fidelity to Sarah comes before his lust for her.  He wants partnership with her, not simply possession of her body.

9) Then they went to bed for the night   But Raguel got up and summoned his servants. They went out with him and dug a grave, 10) for he said, “Perhaps Tobiah will die; then we would be a laughingstock and an object of mockery.” 11) When they had finished digging the grave, Raguel went back into the house and called his wife, 12) saying, “Send one of the maids in to see whether he is alive. If he has died, let us bury him without anyone knowing about it.”

COMMENTARY:  Poor man!  To be so conditioned for disaster that he gets a grave ready automatically.
        And who is laughing at the frequency of these tragedies?  All too often the humor of the oppressed becomes as cruel as their oppressors.  It is bad enough that we suffer at the hands of wicked people; we must not compound the harm by making the wicked our teachers.

13) They sent the maid, lit a lamp, and opened the bedroom door; she went in and found them sleeping together.14) The maid came out and told them that Tobiah was alive, and that nothing was wrong.

COMMENTARY:  And so the happy twist, the eucatastrophe!  Reassurance to the listener that God can indeed end suffering.

15) Then they praised the God of heaven in these words:

“Blessed are you, God, with every pure blessing!

Let all your chosen ones bless you forever!

COMMENTARY:  It’s always a good idea to say “Thank you” after receiving something nice, whether you’re talking to God or your next door neighbor.

16) Blessed are you, for you have made me happy;

what I feared did not happen.

Rather you have dealt with us

according to your abundant mercy.

COMMENTARY:  It’s so easy to fear the future when we’ve suffered much in the past!  But the future can hide good things as well as bad, in whatever mysteries await us.  We never know what blessings might come our way, just when we’ve resigned ourselves to nothing but misfortune.

17) Blessed are you, for you have shown mercy

toward two only children.

Grant them, Master, mercy and protection,

and bring their lives to fulfillment

with happiness and mercy.”

18) Then Raguel told his servants to fill in the grave before dawn.

COMMENTARY:  If I was one of the servants, at this point, roused out of bed to dig a grave, then told to spend the rest of the night filling it up again, I don’t know whether I’d rejoice for the family or grumble loudly and persistently!  Maybe both.

19) He asked his wife to bake many loaves of bread; he himself went out to the herd and brought two steers and four rams, which he ordered to be slaughtered. So they began to prepare the feast. 20) He summoned Tobiah and said to him, “For fourteen days you shall not stir from here, but shall remain here eating and drinking with me; you shall bring joy to my daughter’s afflicted spirit.

COMMENTARY:  Raguel insists upon double the then-usual seven-day festivities, because of the great joy of finally having a surviving groom.  Boy, those old-timers sure knew how to celebrate!

 21) Now take half of what I own here; go back in good health to your father. The other half will be yours when I and my wife die. Take courage, son! I am your father, and Edna is your mother; we belong to you and to your sister both now and forever. So take courage, son!”