Tobit 3:6-8
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
6 “So now, deal with me as you please;
command my life breath to be taken from me,
that I may depart from the face of the earth and become dust.
It is better for me to die than to live,[a]
because I have listened to undeserved reproaches,
and great is the grief within me.(A)
“Lord, command that I be released from such anguish;
let me go to my everlasting abode;
Do not turn your face away from me, Lord.
For it is better for me to die
than to endure so much misery in life,
and to listen to such reproaches!”
II. Sarah’s Plight
Sarah Falsely Accused. 7 [b]On that very day, at Ecbatana in Media, it so happened that Raguel’s daughter Sarah also had to listen to reproaches from one of her father’s maids. 8 For she had been given in marriage to seven husbands, but the wicked demon Asmodeus[c] kept killing them off before they could have intercourse with her, as is prescribed for wives. The maid said to her: “You are the one who kills your husbands! Look! You have already been given in marriage to seven husbands, but you do not bear the name of a single one of them.
Read full chapterFootnotes
- 3:6 It is better for me to die than to live: in his distress Tobit uses the words of the petulant Jonah (Jon 4:3, 8), who wished to die because God did not destroy the hated Ninevites. In similar circumstances, Moses (Nm 11:15), Elijah (1 Kgs 19:4), and Job (Jb 7:15) also prayed for death. Everlasting abode: a reference to Sheol, the dismal abode of the dead from which no one returns (Jb 7:9–10; 14:12; Is 26:14). See note on Tb 4:6.
- 3:7 From here on, the story is told in the third person. Verse 7 relates one of the several marvelous coincidences that the storyteller uses to suggest divine providence; see also vv. 16–17; 4:1; 5:4. Ecbatana: Hamadan in modern Iran; this was the capital of ancient Media. Raguel: the Greek form of the Hebrew name Re‘u’el, “friend of God.”
- 3:8 Asmodeus: in Persian aeshma daeva, “demon of wrath,” adopted into Aramaic with the sense of “the Destroyer.” It will be subdued (8:3) by Raphael (v. 17), whose name means “God has healed.”
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