Tobit 1: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Tobit gives his family line, his tribe, and his deportation from Galilee to Nineve under Enemessar, king of the Assyrians. He tells how he alone of his tribe kept going up to Jerusalem with his tithes, refused the food of the Gentiles in exile, served Enemessar as his buyer, and left ten talents of silver with Gabael in Media. Under Sennacherib he buried the Israelites the king had killed; he was reported to the king and fled, and all his goods were taken. After two of Sennacherib's sons killed him, Sarchedonus made Tobit's nephew Achiacharus chief officer, and Achiacharus pleaded for Tobit, who returned to Nineve.

Claim by Claim

1. 1:1
   • This is the book of the words of Tobit.
   • Tobit was the son of Tobiel.
   • Tobiel was the son of Ananiel.
   • Ananiel was the son of Aduel.
   • Aduel was the son of Gabael.
   • Tobit was of the seed of Asael.
   • Tobit was of the tribe of Naphtali.
2. 1:2
   • Tobit was led away captive in the time of Enemessar king of the Assyrians.
   • Tobit was led captive out of Thisbe.
   • Thisbe lies on the right hand of the city Kedesh of Naphtali.
   • That city is in Galilee, above Asher.
3. 1:3
   • Tobit says he walked in the ways of truth and justice all the days of his life.
   • Tobit says he did many acts of almsgiving to his kindred and his nation.
   • Tobit's kindred and nation went with him to Nineveh, into the land of the Assyrians.
4. 1:4
   • Tobit was young while he was still in his own country, the land of Israel.
   • The whole tribe of Naphtali, Tobit's ancestor, fell away from the house at Jerusalem.
   • The house at Jerusalem had been chosen out of all the tribes of Israel.
   • It was chosen so that all the tribes should sacrifice there.
   • The temple of the dwelling of the Most High was consecrated there.
   • The temple was built there for all ages.
5. 1:5
   • All the tribes that fell away together sacrificed to the heifer Baal.
   • The house of Naphtali, Tobit's ancestor, also sacrificed to the heifer Baal.
6. 1:6
   • Tobit alone went often to Jerusalem at the feasts.
   • Going to Jerusalem at the feasts was ordained for all Israel by an everlasting decree.
   • Tobit brought the firstfruits and the tenths of his increase.
   • Tobit brought the first shearings of the flock.
   • Tobit gave these at the altar to the priests, the sons of Aaron.
7. 1:7
   • Tobit gave the first tenth of all his increase to the sons of Aaron.
   • Those sons of Aaron ministered at Jerusalem.
   • Tobit sold away a second tenth part.
   • Tobit went and spent that second tenth every year at Jerusalem.
8. 1:8
   • Tobit gave the third tenth to those to whom it was fitting.
   • Deborah, Tobit's father's mother, had commanded him to do this.
   • Tobit was left an orphan by his father.
9. 1:9
   • When Tobit reached manhood he married Anna.
   • Anna was of Tobit's own kindred.
   • Tobit fathered Tobias by Anna.
10. 1:10
    • Tobit and his people were carried away captive to Nineveh.
    • All Tobit's kindred and relatives ate the bread of the Gentiles.
11. 1:11
    • Tobit kept himself from eating that bread.
12. 1:12
    • Tobit kept himself from it because he remembered God with all his heart.
13. 1:13
    • The Most High gave Tobit grace and favour before Enemessar.
    • Tobit became Enemessar's buyer of provisions.
14. 1:14
    • Tobit went into Media.
    • Tobit left ten talents of silver in trust with Gabael.
    • Gabael was the brother of Gabrias.
    • Gabael was at Rages, a city of Media.
15. 1:15
    • Enemessar died.
    • Sennacherib his son reigned in his place.
    • In Sennacherib's time the roads became unsettled.
    • Tobit could no longer go into Media.
16. 1:16
    • In the time of Enemessar Tobit gave many alms to his kindred.
    • Tobit gave his bread to the hungry.
17. 1:17
    • Tobit gave his clothes to the naked.
    • If Tobit saw anyone of his nation dead or thrown out about the walls of Nineveh, he buried him.
18. 1:18
    • If king Sennacherib killed anyone when he came fleeing from Judea, Tobit buried them secretly.
    • Sennacherib in his wrath killed many.
    • The king sought for the bodies.
    • The bodies were not found.
19. 1:19
    • One of the Ninevites went and informed the king about Tobit.
    • The informer said that Tobit was burying the dead.
    • The informer said that Tobit was hiding himself.
    • Tobit understood that he was sought to be put to death.
    • Tobit withdrew himself out of fear.
20. 1:20
    • All Tobit's goods were forcibly taken away.
    • Nothing was left to Tobit except his wife Anna and his son Tobias.
21. 1:21
    • Not more than fifty-five days passed before two of Sennacherib's sons killed him.
    • The two sons fled into the mountains of Ararat.
    • Sarchedonus his son reigned in his place.
    • Sarchedonus appointed Achiacharus over his father's accounts and over all his affairs.
    • Achiacharus was the son of Tobit's brother Anael.
22. 1:22
    • Achiacharus made entreaty on Tobit's behalf.
    • Tobit returned to Nineveh.
    • Achiacharus was cupbearer.
    • Achiacharus was keeper of the signet.
    • Achiacharus was steward.
    • Achiacharus was overseer of the accounts.
    • Sarchedonus appointed Achiacharus next to himself.
    • Achiacharus was Tobit's brother's son.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

1:1

The names here are the Greek forms used by the book's translators, so they look unfamiliar beside their Hebrew equivalents elsewhere: Nephthali is Naphtali, one of the twelve tribes of Israel, whose territory lay in the far north of the country around Galilee. "Of the seed of Asael" simply means descended from Asael. Verses 1 and 2 speak of Tobit in the third person, like a title page, and from verse 3 onward Tobit speaks in his own voice.

1:2

Enemessar is the Greek form of Shalmaneser, an Assyrian king. Assyria was the dominant empire of the region in the eighth century BC, and its policy was to break conquered peoples by deporting them far from home and resettling them among strangers. The northern tribes of Israel, Naphtali among them, were carried off this way. "At the right hand of" means to the south of: a speaker facing the sunrise has east ahead, north to the left and south to the right. Aser is Asher, the neighboring tribal territory.

1:3

"Almsdeeds" are gifts of money, food or clothing to the poor. Giving alms is a running theme of this book. "My brethren" does not mean Tobit's own siblings but his fellow Israelites. Nineve is Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, on the Tigris in what is now northern Iraq.

1:4

"The house of Jerusalem" means the temple there, and "fell from" means broke away from. After Solomon's death the ten northern tribes separated from the kingdom ruled from Jerusalem and set up their own sanctuaries, so that they no longer brought their sacrifices to the Jerusalem temple as the law required. Tobit is saying his whole tribe went with them and he alone did not.

1:5

The northern kingdom set up golden calf images at its own sanctuaries as the focus of worship, and Baal was the chief god of the Canaanites, a storm and fertility god. The phrase "the heifer Baal" rolls the two together into one charge of false worship. A heifer is a young cow.

1:6

The feasts are the three annual pilgrimage festivals at which Israelite men were expected to appear at the temple in Jerusalem. The "firstfruits" are the earliest part of a harvest, owed to God before the rest could be used; the "tenths of increase" are the tithe, a tenth of everything the land and flocks produced; and "that which was first shorn" is the first wool cut from the sheep, owed on the same principle. The "children of Aaron" are the hereditary priesthood, traced from Moses' brother Aaron, the only men permitted to handle offerings at the altar.

1:7

Israelite law provided for more than one tithe. The first went to the temple staff for their support. The second was to be consumed by the household itself in Jerusalem during the festivals, and because a year's produce was too bulky to carry that far, the law allowed it to be sold at home and the money spent on food and drink in the city. Note that the King James says this first tenth went to "the sons of Aaron" while the Greek says the sons of Levi, the wider temple tribe from which the priests were only one family.

1:8

The third tithe, collected every third year, was left for those with no land of their own to live from: widows, orphans, resident foreigners and the Levites. "Unto them to whom it was meet" means to those to whom it was due; "meet" in 1611 English means fitting or proper, not encountered. Debora is Deborah, Tobit's grandmother, who raised him after his father died.

1:9

"Of mine own kindred" matters: marrying within the extended family or tribe is treated throughout this book as a duty, a way for an exiled people to keep its identity from dissolving. The same concern drives the plot later. "Begat" is the old word for fathered.

1:10

"The bread of the Gentiles" means food belonging to non-Jews. Israelite law restricted which animals could be eaten and how they had to be slaughtered and prepared, and food from a Gentile table met none of those conditions. Refusing it was costly and conspicuous, which is Tobit's point. Gentiles simply means people who are not Jews.

1:13

"Gave me grace and favour before Enemessar" is a Hebrew way of saying that the king came to think well of him. A "purveyor" is a buying agent, the officer who procured supplies for the royal household, a position of trust involving royal money.

1:14

A talent was a unit of weight, roughly seventy five pounds, so ten talents of silver is an enormous sum, a fortune rather than savings. Leaving it "in trust" means depositing it with a trusted man for safekeeping, there being no banks; the arrangement was sealed by a written bond, which becomes important later. Media was the region east of Assyria, in what is now northwestern Iran, and Rages lay near modern Tehran, a journey of many hundreds of miles.

1:15

"Whose estate was troubled" does not refer to Sennacherib's property. "Estate" in 1611 English means condition or state of affairs, and the Greek says the roads themselves became unsafe, so that travel east to collect the deposit was impossible. In actual Assyrian records Sennacherib was the son of Sargon II rather than of Shalmaneser; the book's royal succession does not line up exactly with the king lists.

1:17

Leaving a corpse exposed was a deliberate insult in this world, and denying burial to the executed was a standard way for a ruler to extend a punishment past death. Burying such a body was therefore both an act of piety toward the dead and an open defiance of the king, which is why it costs Tobit everything in the verses that follow.

1:18

"Privily" means secretly. Sennacherib invaded Judea and besieged Jerusalem, then withdrew without taking the city; the text pictures him returning humiliated and killing Judeans in Nineveh out of rage at that failure.

1:19

The king left the bodies lying out on purpose, as a warning to everyone else. Burying them meant breaking the king's order.

1:21

Ararath is Ararat, the mountainous country north of Assyria, roughly modern Armenia, far enough to be beyond the new king's reach. Sarchedonus is the Greek form of Esarhaddon, who did in fact succeed Sennacherib after his murder by his own sons.

1:22

These are the top offices of a royal court. The cupbearer served the king's wine and, because he could be poisoned in the king's place, had to be utterly trusted. The "signet" is the seal ring used to stamp documents in the king's name, so its keeper controlled what counted as a royal order. The steward ran the household and the overseer of accounts controlled the treasury. Achiacharus is Ahikar, a famous wise counselor known from a widely circulated Near Eastern story of his own; readers of this book would have recognized the name.