Tobit 12: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Tobit tells Tobias to pay the man who traveled with him, and offers him half of everything they brought back. The man takes them aside and tells them to praise God and to speak openly of what God has done, and he speaks about prayer, fasting, giving to the poor, and right living. He then says he is Raphael, one of the seven holy angels, that God sent him to heal Tobit and Sarah, and that he only appeared to eat and drink. He tells them to write everything down, and when they get up he is gone.

Claim by Claim

1. 12:1
   • Tobit called his son Tobias.
   • Tobit told Tobias to see that the man who went with him receives his wages.
   • Tobit said that Tobias must give the man more than his wages.
2. 12:2
   • Tobias said to his father that it does him no harm to give the man half of what he has brought back.
3. 12:3
   • Tobias said the man brought him back to his father in safety.
   • Tobias said the man made his wife whole.
   • Tobias said the man brought back his money.
   • Tobias said the man likewise healed his father.
4. 12:4
   • The old man said that it is due to him.
5. 12:5
   • Tobit called the angel.
   • Tobit told the angel to take half of all that they had brought.
   • Tobit told the angel to go away in safety.
6. 12:6
   • He took the two of them apart privately.
   • He told them to bless God.
   • He told them to praise him.
   • He told them to magnify him.
   • He told them to praise him for the things he has done for them in the sight of all that live.
   • He said it is good to praise God.
   • He said it is good to exalt God's name.
   • He said it is good to show forth the works of God honourably.
   • He told them not to be slack to praise him.
7. 12:7
   • He said it is good to keep a king's secret hidden.
   • He said it is honourable to reveal the works of God.
   • He told them to do what is good.
   • He said no evil shall touch them.
8. 12:8
   • Prayer is good with fasting and alms and righteousness.
   • A little with righteousness is better than much with unrighteousness.
   • It is better to give alms than to lay up gold.
9. 12:9
   • Alms delivers from death.
   • Alms shall purge away all sin.
   • Those who practice alms and righteousness shall be filled with life.
10. 12:10
    • Those who sin are enemies to their own life.
11. 12:11
    • He said he will keep nothing hidden from them.
    • He said he had told them it was good to keep a king's secret hidden.
    • He said he had told them it was honourable to reveal the works of God.
12. 12:12
    • He said that when Tobit prayed, and Sara his daughter in law prayed, he brought the remembrance of their prayers before the Holy One.
    • He said that when Tobit buried the dead, he was likewise with him.
13. 12:13
    • He said that when Tobit did not delay to rise up and leave his dinner in order to go and cover the dead, Tobit's good deed was not hidden from him.
    • He said he was with Tobit.
14. 12:14
    • He said God has now sent him to heal Tobit and Sara his daughter in law.
15. 12:15
    • He said he is Raphael.
    • He said he is one of the seven holy angels.
    • He said those angels present the prayers of the saints.
    • He said those angels go in and out before the glory of the Holy One.
16. 12:16
    • The two of them were troubled.
    • They fell upon their faces.
    • They feared.
17. 12:17
    • He told them not to fear.
    • He said it shall go well with them.
    • He told them to praise God.
18. 12:18
    • He said he came not by any favour of his own.
    • He said he came by the will of our God.
    • He told them to praise God for ever.
19. 12:19
    • He said he appeared to them all those days.
    • He said he neither ate nor drank.
    • He said what they saw was a vision.
20. 12:20
    • He told them to give God thanks.
    • He said he is going up to him who sent him.
    • He told them to write all the things that were done in a book.
21. 12:21
    • They arose.
    • They saw him no more.
22. 12:22
    • They confessed the great and wonderful works of God.
    • They confessed how the angel of the Lord had appeared to them.

Words Worth Explaining

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

12:1

The man who traveled with Tobias was hired as a guide in chapter 5 at an agreed rate of one drachma a day plus expenses, a drachma being roughly a day's wage for an ordinary laborer. Tobit is saying that the contracted pay is not enough for what was actually done.

12:3

"Made whole my wife" is King James English simply for cured her. It refers to Sarah, whose seven previous bridegrooms had died on their wedding nights, and who was freed from the demon Asmodeus on her wedding night with Tobias.

12:5

The "half" is half of everything brought back from the trip: the ten talents of silver recovered from Gabael at Rages, plus the property that came to Tobias with Sarah. It is an enormous sum, not a tip.

12:6

To "bless God" is a Hebrew idiom carried straight into the King James. It does not mean conferring a blessing on God; it means speaking well of him, praising him aloud.

12:7

Keeping a king's confidence was standard court wisdom in the ancient Near East: a counselor who repeated what the king said in private could lose his position or his life. The saying sets that ordinary discretion against the opposite obligation regarding what God has done, which is to be told in public.

12:8

"Alms" is the King James word for money or goods given to the poor. In the Hebrew and Aramaic behind books like this, one word family covers both charitable giving and righteousness or justice, which is why the two keep turning up side by side in these verses. Fasting means deliberately going without food for a set period as part of prayer or mourning.

12:9

"Purge away" means wash out or wipe clean. The saying reworks a proverb well known in Jewish tradition, "righteousness delivereth from death" (Proverbs 10:2 and 11:4), using a word that could be heard either as right conduct in general or as giving to the poor in particular.

12:12

The prayers are the two prayers of chapter 3, which Tobit in Nineveh and Sarah in Ecbatana prayed on the same day without knowing of each other. "The remembrance of your prayers" uses the vocabulary of the temple: the memorial was the portion of an offering burned so that its smoke went up and brought the worshiper to God's notice. Raphael describes himself as carrying their prayers up in that way. "The Holy One" is a title for God.

12:13

This recalls chapter 2. Tobit left his festival meal untouched when he heard that an Israelite had been killed and left lying in the marketplace, and he went and buried the body after dark. Burying his own people's dead was forbidden by the king at Nineveh and had already cost Tobit his property and nearly his life; contact with a corpse also made a person ritually unclean for a period. The act carried a price either way.

12:15

The name Raphael means "God heals" in Hebrew, which is why he gives it at this point, immediately after saying that God sent him to heal. "One of the seven holy angels" reflects an idea common in Jewish writing of this period, that seven named angels stand in God's immediate presence; the lists of names vary from book to book. "Saints" in the King James does not mean canonized holy figures; it is simply that translation's word for God's holy people, the faithful in general. To "go in and out before the glory" is court language: these are the attendants who have the right of entry to the king's own presence.

12:16

Falling face down on the ground was the customary way of showing awe or submission before a king or a divine being. It is a deliberate gesture, not a faint.

12:18

"Favour" here does not mean a kindness done to someone. The sense is that Raphael did not come of his own goodwill or on his own initiative, but was sent. Manuscripts differ over the next words: some read "our God," as the King James does, others "your God."

12:19

Raphael is saying that although they watched him at meals for the whole journey, he took no food and no drink; what they saw was an appearance only. The King James renders the Greek literally and leaves it at that, without explaining further.

12:20

"Write all things which are done in a book" presents the story just told as the origin of this book itself. The next chapter opens with the song Tobit then wrote down.

12:22

"Confessed" in 1611 English normally meant to declare or acknowledge openly, very often in praise. It does not mean admitting to a fault.