Chapter Twelve

Instructions of the Angel Raphael to Tobit and Tobias

1–5. Tobit offers Raphael a reward for service to Tobias. 6–10. The angel instructs Tobit and Tobias to confess the greatness and blessings of God, praises prayer and almsgiving. 11–15. Raphael reveals himself to Tobit and Tobias, announces to them his heavenly nature and his service received from God and, in particular, his mission regarding Tobit and Sarah. 16–22. The angel comforts father and son, commands all that has happened to be written in a book, and then becomes invisible.

Tobit 12:1. And Tobit called his son Tobias and said to him: Prepare, my son, payment for the man who traveled with you; and it is necessary to give him even more. Tobit 12:2. He answered: Father, I will not lose if I give him half of all that I have brought; Tobit 12:3. Because he has brought me to you healthy and cured my wife and brought my money and healed you as well. Tobit 12:4. The old man said: It is fitting for him. Tobit 12:5. And he called the Angel and said to him: Take half of all that you have brought and go in peace. Tobit 12:6. Then, calling them both aside, the Angel said to them: Bless God, praise Him, acknowledge His greatness and confess before all the living what He has done for you. It is good to bless God and exalt His name and proclaim the deeds of God with reverence; and do not cease to praise Him. 6. The glorification of the wonderful works of God’s mercy toward Tobit and his family, out of zeal for the glory of God and the spiritual benefit of neighbors, was, according to the angel’s instruction, the duty of Tobit and Tobias, and they, according to his instruction (verse 20), were to preserve the miraculous events that had occurred in their fate in writing.

Tobit 12:7. It is good to keep the secret of a king, but the works of God should be declared with praise. Do good, and evil will not overtake you. 7. The meaning of the saying, repeated also below (verse 11) and perhaps being a proverb,—to present in image and antithesis the moral teaching about the glorification of the wonderful works of God.

Tobit 12:8. Good is prayer with fasting and almsgiving and righteousness. Better is a little with righteousness than much with unrighteousness; better to practice almsgiving than to gather gold, Tobit 12:9. Because almsgiving delivers from death and can cleanse every sin. Those who practice almsgiving and acts of righteousness will have long life. 8–9. The angel’s teachings concerning virtues: almsgiving, prayer, fasting, righteousness have a general biblical character, are essentially identical with the teaching of the Old and New Testaments regarding these virtues and do not constitute any teaching on the part of the author of the book of Tobit. It is completely unfounded to assert, as Graetz does, that the angel Raphael’s statement that almsgiving (ελεημοσύνη) cleanses or atones for sins (verse 9, chapter 12) and that, thus, besides sacrifice, there is another means of cleansing or reconciliation—represents a new teaching first expressed by the famous Johanan ben Zakkai in Judaism after the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem to console his countrymen who grieved at the impossibility, owing to the absence of the temple, of bringing sacrifices for the cleansing of sins (Gratz H. Das Buch Tobias oder Tobit, siene Ursprache, seine Abfassungszeit und Tendanz, 1879, see in Prof. Drozdov, p. 541–542). Similar thoughts and expressions concerning the conditions for the efficacy of sacrifices and the preferability of good works and especially almsgiving before sacrifices are found in many sacred Old Testament books, for example, in the prophet Hosea (Hos 6:6) and Isaiah (Isa 1:11-13), and specifically about almsgiving (ελεεμοσύνη) as a virtue cleansing sins, it is said in Prov 16:6, Dan 4 and Sir 3:30.

Tobit 12:10. But sinners are enemies of their own life. Tobit 12:11. I will not hide anything from you; I have already said: It is good to keep the secret of a king, but the works of God should be declared with praise. Tobit 12:12. When you prayed and your daughter-in-law Sarah, I brought the memory of your prayer before the Holy One, and when you buried the dead, I was also with you. Tobit 12:13. And when you did not hesitate to rise and leave your food to go and bury the dead, your charity was not hidden from me, but I was with you. Tobit 12:14. And now God has sent me to heal you and your daughter-in-law Sarah. Tobit 12:15. I am Raphael, one of the seven holy Angels who present the prayers of the saints and stand before the glory of the Holy One. 11–15. Now the Angel, until now considered by Tobit and Tobias to be the man Azariah, reveals to them his true essence and dignity. In this—according to the general development of biblical angelology—first (verses 12–14) he informs them of his activities toward Tobit and Sarah (cf. 3:16–17)—of his earthly mission (verse 14)—then reveals to them his heavenly dignity, his position in the heavenly hierarchy. Having mentioned the hidden, invisible side of the history described in the book of Tobit—that as the prayer of Tobit and Sarah (3:2–6, 11–15) in its time was presented by the Angel before the Holy One (cf. Rev 8:3-4), so also the charity of Tobit in burying the dead fellow countrymen (1:17–19; 2:1–5) was accomplished with the invisible aid of the Angel (verses 12–13)—then of his activity as a heavenly messenger for healing the infirmities of Tobit and Sarah (verse 14). The Angel finally announces to Tobit and Tobias his true nature: “I am Raphael, one of the seven holy Angels who present the prayers of the saints and stand before the glory of the Holy One” (verse 15). Instead of the words standing in the accepted Greek text of the book: ‘oi προσαναφέρουσιν τάς προσευχάς των αγίων—who present the prayers of the saints—words that seem to have been transferred to verse 15 from verse 12—in the Sinaiticus Codex are the words: οι παρεσιήκασι, “who stand (before the glory of the Holy One)”; equally in the Vulgate: qui adstamus ante Dominum. The expression “to stand” before someone is taken from the practice or customs at ancient Eastern royal courts and in the Bible is often used both of earthly relationships—the standing of the king’s servants before his throne (1 Sam 22:7; 1 Kgs 10:8)—and to express the conception of the heavenly service of angels to God (for example, see 1 Kgs 22:19; Isa 6:2; Dan 7:10). Of course, this “standing” of the angels before God should be understood in a completely general sense of their service to God, which service cannot be limited to only the heavenly sphere of the angels’ existence, but embraces their mission from God to earth for the purposes of human salvation. Therefore, the division among the rabbis of angels into those properly “standing” (assistentes) and those “serving” (ministrantes) God, of which only the latter could be sent by God into the world, while the former exclusively stood before the glory of God, is false. The book of Tobit speaks against this assumption: “standing” before God the Angel Raphael is sent by God to earth for the purposes of human salvation. In the general conception of the “standing” or service of angels to God enter, of course, the presentation by angels of the prayers of people before God, verse 12: the intercession of angels before God for people is presupposed both in the Old Testament biblical angelology (see, for example, Job 5:1; Zech 1:12) and—especially in the New Testament—in the classical passage of the Revelation chapter 8, verses 2–4. Therefore, the reading in verse 15 in the accepted Greek text (“who present the prayers of the saints”), although it is comparatively less textually attested, but has all the force of internal certainty (cf. in A. Glagolev, Old Testament biblical teaching on angels: p. 269, 274–275). As for the seven-fold number of angels standing before God—of which the book of Tobit speaks (12:15)—in the Old Testament canonical writings before the time of exile there are no clear testimonies of seven specifically angels. But in the book of the prophet Ezekiel (Ezek 9:1-2) there appear seven men-executioners, evidently angels (cf. Zech 4:10), and in the Revelation it is repeatedly said of seven spirits or angels standing before the throne of God (Rev 1:4). Moreover, both the book of Tobit and the book of Revelation present these seven angels as the highest, i.e., archangels. Thus, in its essential features the angelology of the book of Tobit coincides with biblical angelology in general (cf. in Prof. Drozdov, p. 368 and forward in A. Glagolev, p. 408–409).

Tobit 12:16. Then both were terrified and fell on their faces, because they were afraid. Tobit 12:17. But he said to them: Do not fear, peace be with you. Bless God forever. Tobit 12:18. For I came not by my own will, but by the will of our God; therefore bless Him forever. Tobit 12:19. All these days I have appeared to you, but I neither ate nor drank—it only seemed so to your eyes. 16–19. The description of the impression produced by the angel’s revelation on Tobias and Tobit is quite analogous with other biblical narratives of how biblical figures received the appearances of angels (for example, Judg 6:22). But here, however, it is more clearly emphasized (verse 19) that the angels, although in their appearances to people acted like people whose form they assumed, nevertheless their eating of food was only an apparent action, not accompanied by the transformation of food and drink into blood—the essential process of nourishment. (The words of the Angel in verse 19 Hugo Grotius paraphrases thus: non vertebantur cibi et potus in meam substantiam).

Tobit 12:20. Now therefore glorify God, because I go up to Him who sent me, and write in a book all that has come to pass. Tobit 12:21. And they rose up and saw him no longer. Tobit 12:22. And they began to tell of the great and wonderful works of God, and how the Angel of the Lord appeared to them. 20–22. By the command of the Angel, Tobit and Tobias both orally confessed the great works of God accomplished in them, and in writing they fixed these events for the glory of God and for the benefit of their neighbors and posterity.