Guide
What Is the Book of Tobit?
3rd–1st Century BCE
Restricted
The book of Tobit is a Jewish novella featuring two parallel stories: that of Tobit, a pious Jew from the Galilee who is exiled to Assyria and suffers many hardships, culminating in blindness; and that of his relative Sarah, living in Media, who loses seven husbands to the demon Asmodeus. Both pray to God and are rescued by the angel Raphael. The book of Tobit appears in the Septuagint and is included in the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox canons and the Protestant Apocrypha.
Related Primary Sources
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Tobit’s Hymn of Thanksgiving
Tobit 12:22–13:17
They kept blessing God and singing his praises, and they acknowledged God for these marvelous deeds of his, when an angel of God had…
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Tobit’s Prayer of Confession
Tobit 3:1–6
Then with much grief and anguish of heart I wept, and with groaning began to pray:
“You are righteous, O Lord,and all your deeds are just;all your ways are mercy and truth;you judge the world.And…
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Curing Blindness
Tobit 2–11 (selections)
That same night I [Tobit] washed myself and went into my courtyard and slept by the wall of the courtyard; and my face was uncovered because…
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Sarah of Ecbatana
Tobit 3–11 (selections)
On the same day, at Ecbatana in Media, it also happened that Sarah, the daughter of Raguel, was reproached by one of her father’s maids. For she had been married to seven husbands, and the…
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Tobit Brings Firstfruits to Jerusalem
Tobit 1:6–7
But I alone went often to Jerusalem for the festivals, as it is prescribed for all Israel by an everlasting decree. I would hurry off to Jerusalem with the first fruits of the crops and the…