Tobit 2: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Tobit comes home for the feast of Pentecost and, seeing plenty of food, sends his son to bring back a poor man of their people to share it; Tobias returns with news that a man of their nation has been strangled and left in the marketplace. Tobit takes the body aside, eats in grief, remembers the words of Amos, weeps, and buries the man after sunset while his neighbors mock him. That night he sleeps by his courtyard wall with his face uncovered, sparrow droppings fall into his open eyes, a whiteness comes over them, and the doctors cannot help him. Later his wife Anna is paid for her work with a young goat, and when Tobit says it is stolen and orders it returned, she asks him where his charity and good deeds are now.

Claim by Claim

1. 2:1
   • The speaker came home again.
   • The speaker's wife Anna was restored to him.
   • The speaker's son Tobias was restored to him.
   • This happened at the feast of Pentecost.
   • Pentecost is the holy feast of the seven weeks.
   • A good dinner was prepared for the speaker.
   • The speaker sat down to eat.
2. 2:2
   • The speaker saw an abundance of meat.
   • The speaker said to his son, Go and bring whatever poor man you find among our brethren.
   • The speaker specified the poor man should be one who is mindful of the Lord.
   • The speaker said he would wait for his son.
3. 2:3
   • The son came back.
   • The son said, Father, one of our nation is strangled.
   • The son said the dead man is cast out in the marketplace.
4. 2:4
   • The speaker had not yet tasted any food.
   • The speaker started up.
   • The speaker took the body up into a room.
   • The speaker kept the body there until the sun went down.
5. 2:5
   • The speaker returned.
   • The speaker washed himself.
   • The speaker ate his food in grief.
6. 2:6
   • The speaker remembered the prophecy of Amos.
   • Amos said that your feasts shall be turned into mourning.
   • Amos said that all your mirth shall be turned into lamentation.
7. 2:7
   • The speaker wept.
   • After the sun went down the speaker went out.
   • The speaker dug a grave.
   • The speaker buried the dead man.
8. 2:8
   • The speaker's neighbours mocked him.
   • The neighbours said this man is not yet afraid to be put to death for this matter.
   • The neighbours said that he fled away.
   • The neighbours said that he buries the dead again.
9. 2:9
   • That same night the speaker returned from the burial.
   • The speaker slept by the wall of his courtyard.
   • The speaker was ritually unclean.
   • The speaker's face was uncovered.
10. 2:10
    • The speaker did not know there were sparrows in the wall.
    • The speaker's eyes were open.
    • The sparrows dropped warm dung into the speaker's eyes.
    • A whiteness came upon the speaker's eyes.
    • The speaker went to physicians.
    • The physicians did not help the speaker.
    • Achiacharus provided for the speaker.
    • Achiacharus provided for him until the speaker went into Elymais.
11. 2:11
    • The speaker's wife Anna took on women's work for pay.
12. 2:12
    • Anna sent the finished work to the owners.
    • The owners paid her wages.
    • The owners also gave her a kid besides the wages.
13. 2:13
    • The kid came into the speaker's house.
    • The kid began to cry.
    • The speaker asked his wife where the kid came from.
    • The speaker asked whether the kid was stolen.
    • The speaker told her to give it back to the owners.
    • The speaker said it is not lawful to eat anything stolen.
14. 2:14
    • Anna replied that the kid was given as a gift in addition to the wages.
    • The speaker did not believe her.
    • The speaker told her to return the kid to the owners.
    • The speaker was ashamed before her.
    • Anna answered and asked where his alms are.
    • Anna asked where his righteous deeds are.
    • Anna said that he and all his works are known.

Words Worth Explaining

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

2:1

Pentecost is the Greek name, meaning "fiftieth," for the Hebrew feast of Weeks: a one day harvest festival held seven weeks, fifty days, after Passover. Hence "the holy feast of the seven weeks." Tobit is speaking as a deported Israelite living in Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, and the family being "restored" to him refers to the end of his time in hiding, told in the previous chapter.

2:2

In 1611 English "meat" meant food of any kind, not flesh specifically, so "abundance of meat" is simply a large spread. "Our brethren" means fellow Israelites among the deportees, and inviting a poor countryman to share a festival meal was a customary act of charity on a feast day.

2:3

The body has been left lying in the open. Under Assyrian practice an executed man could be denied burial as an added punishment, and to a Jew leaving a corpse exposed was a grave dishonor; burying the abandoned dead is the risk Tobit keeps taking throughout this book.

2:4

He waits for dark because burying the king's victims was forbidden and punishable by death, as verse 8 recalls. Carrying the body into the house is itself a risk, since a corpse under the roof made the whole household ritually unclean.

2:5

The washing is ritual, not hygienic. Contact with a dead body left a person unclean for a set period under Israelite law, and washing was the first step in becoming clean again.

2:6

The quotation is from the prophet Amos, chapter 8 verse 10. "Mirth" and "lamentation" are the festival songs and the wailing at a funeral: the two opposite kinds of public noise.

2:7

The KJV phrase "made a grave" means dug one, not built a monument.

2:8

The neighbors are referring back to chapter 1, where Tobit buried men the Assyrian king had killed, was reported, and had to flee for his life until that king's death. Their point is that he learned nothing from nearly being executed.

2:9

"Polluted" is the older English word for ritually unclean, the state that handling a corpse put him in; it carries no suggestion of filth or of wrongdoing. An unclean person kept away from the household living space, which is why he sleeps outside against the courtyard wall rather than indoors.

2:10

"Muted" is an old term for a bird's dropping of dung. The "whiteness" is a white film spreading over the eyes, the ancient description of a blinding condition such as cataract or scarring of the cornea. Achiacharus, better known as Ahikar, is introduced in chapter 1 as Tobit's nephew and a senior official at the Assyrian court; the story of Ahikar circulated widely in the ancient Near East as a tale in its own right. "Did nourish me" means supported him, paid his keep. Elymais is Elam, the region east of the Tigris in what is now southwestern Iran.

2:11

"Women's works" is paid piecework done at home, spinning and weaving cloth for others, one of the few ways a woman could earn wages. The household now lives on her income because Tobit is blind.

2:12

A young goat was a substantial gift, worth considerably more than a day's wage, which is exactly why Tobit finds it suspicious.

2:13

Tobit's objection rests on the rule that stolen property remains the owner's, so eating it would make the household party to the theft. His scruple is legal, not squeamish.

2:14

"I was abashed at her" means he was embarrassed on her account, ashamed of what he took her to have done. Her reply is deliberately barbed and can be read more than one way: either "so much for your charity and your good deeds" as plain sarcasm, or "everyone can see what your righteousness has actually come to," a jab at his blindness and poverty. The Greek is ambiguous, and some manuscripts sharpen it further to "it is known what has become of you." "Alms" are gifts of money or food to the poor, the practice Tobit is praised for in chapter 1.