Hebrew Tales

Tobias & the Angel

Chapter 3

Tobit and Sarah both pray for death to end their suffering. God deputes an angel to deal with the situation.

[1] Then I was grieved and I wept, and in my sorrow I prayed, saying,

[2] “O Lord, you are just, and all your works and all your ways are mercy and truth, and you judge truly and justly for ever. [3] Remember me and look upon me, do not punish me for my sins and my ignorance, nor for the sins of my fathers, who sinned before you, [4] for they did not obey your commandments. Therefore you have delivered us as plunder, and into captivity, and to death, and as a proverb of reproach to all the nations among whom we are dispersed.

[5] “And now your judgments are many and true. Deal with me according to my sins and my fathers’ sins, because we have not kept your commandments, nor have we walked in truth before you. [6] Now therefore deal with me as it seems best to you, and command my spirit to be taken from me, so that I may be dissolved and become earth; for it is better for me to die than to live, because I have heard false reproaches and have much sorrow. Command therefore that I may now be delivered out of this distress and go into the everlasting place. Do not turn your face away from me.”

Sarah despairs, knowing full well what happened to her previous matches and troubled by the teasing from the maids.
(Rembrandt, 1606-1669, National Gallery of Scotland)

[7] It happened the same day, in Ecbatane a city of Media, that Sarah, the daughter of Raguel, was also reproached by her father’s maids; [8] because she had been married to seven husbands, whom Asmodeus the evil spirit had killed, before they had lain with her.

“Do you not know,” they said, “that you have strangled your husbands? You have already had seven husbands, yet you have not taken the name of any of them. [9] So then, do you beat us because of them? If they are dead, go your way after them; let us never see either son or daughter from you.” [10] When she heard these things, she was very sorrowful, so that she thought about strangling herself; but she said, “I am the only daughter of my father, and if I do this, it shall be a reproach to him, and I shall bring his old age with sorrow to the grave.” [11] Then she prayed toward the window and said,

“Blessed are you, O Lord my God, and your holy and glorious name is blessed and honorable for ever; let all your works praise you for ever. [12] And now, O Lord, I set my eyes and my face toward you, [13] and say, ‘Take me out of the earth, so that I may no longer hear this reproach.

[14] “You know, Lord, that I am pure, free from all sin with man, [15] and that I never polluted my name, nor the name of my father, in the land of my captivity. I am the only daughter of my father, and he has no child to be his heir; nor does he have any near kinsman, nor any son of a near kinsman alive, to whom I might give myself as a wife. My seven husbands are already dead and so why should I live? But if it does not please you that I should die, then command some regard to be given to me and pity to be taken on me, so that I will no longer hear reproach.’”

[16] So both of their prayers —the prayers of Tobit and of Sarah— were heard before the majesty of the great God.

[17] And [the angel] Raphael was sent to heal them both, that is, to scale away the whiteness of Tobit’s eyes, and to give Sarah the daughter of Raguel as a wife to Tobias the son of Tobit; and to bind Asmodeus the evil spirit, because Sarah belonged to Tobias by right of inheritance.

At the very same time, Tobit came home and entered into his house, and Sarah the daughter of Raguel came down from her upper room.

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