Anakalypsis / Unveiling the Word
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Manuscript witnesses 2 ▾
Codex Sinaiticus Aleph c. AD 330-360 Codex Vaticanus B c. AD 300-325
What is Tobit 9 about?

With the wedding feast binding him to Ecbatana, Tobias cannot go himself for his father's silver, so he sends Raphael on to Rages in Media to recover it from Gabael. The angel makes the errand, produces the sealed bags of money, and brings Gabael back to share in the celebration. Gabael blesses the bridegroom and rejoices to see the son of so worthy a man. The short chapter ties off the very errand that began the travels, showing the deposit safely kept and returned by God's faithful arrangement.

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 9
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 9

Tobit Chapter 9
9
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What is Tobit 9 about?

With the wedding feast binding him to Ecbatana, Tobias cannot go himself for his father's silver, so he sends Raphael on to Rages in Media to recover it from Gabael. The angel makes the errand, produces the sealed bags of money, and brings Gabael back to share in the celebration. Gabael blesses the bridegroom and rejoices to see the son of so worthy a man. The short chapter ties off the very errand that began the travels, showing the deposit safely kept and returned by God's faithful arrangement.