Anakalypsis / Unveiling the Word
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⚙ Annotations & References ▾
Historic voices 1 ▾
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1× 2
Manuscript witnesses 2 ▾
Codex Sinaiticus Aleph c. AD 330-360 Codex Vaticanus B c. AD 300-325
What is Tobit 13 about?

Overwhelmed by mercy, Tobit answers with a hymn of thanksgiving that praises the God who wounds and heals, who scatters His people among the nations yet gathers them again. He calls the exiles to acknowledge God's justice, to turn back to Him, and to declare His greatness before the Gentiles. The song then lifts to Jerusalem, foreseeing the city rebuilt in gladness, its gates and walls set with sapphire and gold, and the nations drawn to its light. The prayer turns one family's rescue outward to the hope of all the dispersed, voicing the confidence in restoration that carries God's people through exile.

Historical backdrop

The tale is set among the exiles of the northern tribes, carried off to Nineveh when Assyria swallowed the kingdom of Israel and its ten tribes vanished into the empire. Nineveh sat astride the Tigris as the greatest city of the age, and the roads of Assyria ran east to Media, to Ecbatana beneath the Zagros and to Rages where a man might leave silver in trust against hard years. This is the world of the first great deportation, the dispersion that scattered Israel among the nations and taught it to be faithful far from the temple.

The Church Fathers on Tobit 13
Deuterocanon (Catholic & Orthodox) · Accepted as canonical Scripture by the Catholic and Orthodox traditions and included in the original 1611 KJV (between the Old and New Testaments). Not in the Protestant 66-book canon. Read with the same care you bring to other Scripture, conscious that Protestants and Catholics weigh its authority differently.

Tobit 13

Tobit Chapter 13
13
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What is Tobit 13 about?

Overwhelmed by mercy, Tobit answers with a hymn of thanksgiving that praises the God who wounds and heals, who scatters His people among the nations yet gathers them again. He calls the exiles to acknowledge God's justice, to turn back to Him, and to declare His greatness before the Gentiles. The song then lifts to Jerusalem, foreseeing the city rebuilt in gladness, its gates and walls set with sapphire and gold, and the nations drawn to its light. The prayer turns one family's rescue outward to the hope of all the dispersed, voicing the confidence in restoration that carries God's people through exile.