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Tobit 13-14 - The New Jerusalem, Nineveh's Fall, and Faithful Death

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This narration is from a previous version of the study and may include a combined recording of multiple chapters.

Tobit has received his sight, but he will never see all that he sings. Jerusalem’s captives are still scattered; the city’s promised glory lies ahead. From Nineveh he nevertheless calls sinners to repent and nations to bring gifts to the King of heaven. Thanksgiving has enlarged his concern beyond his own recovery.

His last counsel gives that hope a form his children can live: worship God, practice mercy, honor the dead, and refuse to trust Nineveh’s apparent permanence. The book ends with a song handed on and an obedient son carrying its wisdom into old age.

Before reading: eBible’s Brenton divides the end of Tobit 13:7 into the labels 7a, 7b, and 7c. Their words correspond to KJV Apocrypha verses 8, 9, and 10. This study displays those standard numbers with Brenton’s labels in brackets; no words are missing. This editorial division is distinct from the differences between shorter Greek Vaticanus/Alexandrinus and longer Greek Sinaiticus, including Sinaiticus’s gaps. See the Overview’s A Note on the Text.1

The Healed Man Begins with Praise (Tobit 13:1-10)

1 Then Tobit wrote a prayer of rejoicing, and said, Blessed be God that liveth for ever, and blessed be his kingdom.

2 For he doth scourge, and hath mercy: he leadeth down to hell, and bringeth up again: neither is there any that can avoid his hand. 3 Confess him before the Gentiles, ye children of Israel: for he hath scattered us among them. 4 There declare his greatness, and extol him before all the living: for he is our Lord, and he is the God our Father for ever. 5 And he will scourge us for our iniquities, and will have mercy again, and will gather us out of all nations, among whom he hath scattered us.

6 If ye turn to him with your whole heart, and with your whole mind, and deal uprightly before him, then will he turn unto you, and will not hide his face from you. Therefore see what he will do with you, and confess him with your whole mouth, and praise the Lord of might, and extol the everlasting King. In the land of my captivity do I praise him, and declare his might and majesty to a sinful nation. O ye sinners, turn and do justice before him: who can tell if he will accept you, and have mercy on you?

7 I will extol my God, and my soul shall praise the King of heaven, and shall rejoice in his greatness. 8 [Brenton 7a] Let all men speak, and let all praise him for his righteousness. 9 [Brenton 7b] O Jerusalem, the holy city, he will scourge thee for thy children’s works, and will have mercy again on the sons of the righteous. 10 [Brenton 7c] Give praise to the Lord, for he is good: and praise the everlasting King, that his tabernacle may be builded in thee again with joy, and let him make joyful there in thee those that are captives, and love in thee for ever those that are miserable.

The prayer begins with God’s enduring life and kingdom. Every empire in the book is temporary; the King Tobit praises lives forever. “He leadeth down to hell, and bringeth up again” recalls Hannah’s song in 1 Samuel 2:6, where the Lord brings down to the grave and raises up. Here “hell” speaks of the realm of the dead, not a claim that Tobit has charted the final judgment. For Christians, the praise reaches its fullness in the crucified and risen Lord, whose victory makes death itself unable to close the future.

Tobit joins scattering, chastening, and mercy. He confesses Israel’s iniquities without treating captivity as proof that God has abandoned His people. Nor does his confession authorize us to assign guilt to every person who suffers. It is a prayer of repentance spoken from within the people’s wounds.

Verse 6 brings the song to a searching question: “who can tell if he will accept you, and have mercy on you?” Jonah 3:9 places the same question on Nineveh’s lips. Its people fast, turn from violence, and hope that God may spare them. Tobit now praises in Nineveh and calls a sinful nation to turn and do justice. The captive desires repentance in the land that holds him. His hope is already larger than revenge.

Jonah 3:10 makes that repentance concrete: God sees that they turn from their evil ways. Sackcloth accompanies a changed life. Christ later names the Ninevites as witnesses against those who hear more and refuse repentance (Matthew 12:41). Their example reaches us whenever familiarity with holy things makes us slower to confess than someone who has only just heard God’s warning. On the third day of Jonah’s Fast, the Church hears Nineveh’s repentance in Jonah 3:1-4:11.2 The people Tobit’s family must leave are also people whose turning God desires. We cannot ask for mercy for ourselves while begrudging it to another city.

“In the land of my captivity do I praise him” is the practice sustaining the whole song. Tobit does not postpone worship until the surroundings become worthy of it. The mouth that confesses God among strangers can also confess its sins. Praise becomes truthful where the heart begins to return.

The address to Jerusalem then asks that God’s tabernacle be rebuilt and the miserable be loved there. Restoration means a dwelling where captives rejoice, not merely walls standing again. Amos 9:11 and its use in Acts 15:16-17 bring the rebuilding of David’s fallen tent together with the nations seeking the Lord. John 1:14 brings divine dwelling to its Christian center: the Word becomes flesh and dwells among us. Tobit’s hope for God’s presence draws the reader toward Christ, without making these distinct promises identical.

The Nations Come to Jerusalem’s Joy (Tobit 13:11-15)

11 Many nations shall come from far to the name of the Lord God with gifts in their hands, even gifts to the King of heaven; all generations shall praise thee with great joy. 12 Cursed are all they which hate thee, and blessed shall all be which love thee for ever. 13 Rejoice and be glad for the children of the just: for they shall be gathered together, and shall bless the Lord of the just. 14 O blessed are they which love thee, for they shall rejoice in thy peace: blessed are they which have been sorrowful for all thy scourges; for they shall rejoice for thee, when they have seen all thy glory, and shall be glad for ever.

15 Let my soul bless God the great King.

The gifts come “to the name of the Lord God.” Isaiah 60:3-11 supplies the great prophetic background: nations approach the light, scattered children return, and gold and frankincense arrive with praise. The jewels of the next section belong within this worshiping city. They are gifts received under the glory of God.

The Magi’s gifts to Christ in Matthew 2:11 give Christians an early Gospel realization of the nations bringing treasure to Israel’s King. The nations’ approach begins in adoration, not the exile’s satisfaction at having new subjects beneath him. Tobit’s King is the King of heaven.

The blessing of those who love Jerusalem and the warning against those who hate her place a real claim on the reader. God’s promised peace deserves our love and allegiance. Hebrews 12:22-24 names the Christian destination as the heavenly Jerusalem and Jesus, mediator of the new covenant. Love for that city cannot justify contempt for people outside it.

Those who mourned her scourges will share her joy. They are blessed for loving her through the grief, before glory is visible. In parish life this can mean grieving a division without feeding it, praying for people who have left, and working patiently for reconciliation. Love remains at its post before it can celebrate.

The Streets Say Alleluia (Tobit 13:16-18)

16 For Jerusalem shall be built up with sapphire, and emerald, and precious stone: thy walls and towers and battlements with pure gold. 17 And the streets of Jerusalem shall be paved with beryl and carbuncle and stone of Ophir. 18 And all her streets shall say, Alleluia; and they shall praise him, saying, Blessed be God, which hath extolled it for ever.

Isaiah 54:11-12 promises precious stones and sapphire foundations to an afflicted, uncomforted city. Tobit takes up that radiance; Revelation 21:18-23 gathers it into the new Jerusalem, where God and the Lamb are its temple and the Lamb its light. The line from Isaiah through Tobit to Revelation is a continuity of biblical hope, not a claim that each description has precisely the same stones or construction plan.

The promise answers affliction with beauty given by God. What a conqueror might plunder becomes the city’s common pavement. Precious things serve a shared life whose deepest wealth is God’s presence. In the Coptic church-consecration service, Revelation 21:1-27 turns the congregation’s eyes toward this new Jerusalem.3 A church building gives us a place to worship while teaching us to long for the dwelling where God wipes away every tear.

“All her streets shall say, Alleluia” carries worship outside the sanctuary into the city’s daily life. Revelation 19:1-9 sets Alleluia amid the praise of God’s righteous judgment and the announcement of the Lamb’s marriage. Tobit’s rejoicing household has opened onto a far greater feast. Christ gathers the redeemed into a communion where praise will no longer be interrupted by shame, exile, or death.

The Healed Man Hands Memory to the Children (Tobit 14:1-3)

1 So Tobit made an end of praising God. 2 And he was eight and fifty years old when he lost his sight, which was restored to him after eight years: and he gave alms, and he increased in the fear of the Lord God, and praised him.

3 And when he was very aged, he called his son, and the sons of his son, and said to him, My son, take thy children; for, behold, I am aged, and am ready to depart out of this life.

After the song, Tobit continues giving alms and increasing in the fear of God. The book refuses to let a beautiful prayer substitute for the life it describes. His healed years bear the same fruit his final counsel will commend.

Then he gathers his son and grandchildren. Genesis 49:28-33 gives the patriarchal pattern: Jacob blesses his sons, instructs them about burial, and dies after completing his charge. Tobit likewise leaves a way of life along with a burial request. A family needs more than property to know how to live after its elder is gone.

Simeon’s departure in Luke 2:29-32, developed in the Tobit 11-12 study, gives this peaceful readiness its Christian horizon. Faithful death is not the ability to suppress fear or choose one’s circumstances. It is departure entrusted to God, with love and responsibility still directed toward those who remain.

The Church’s Voice in Worship ⛪

Coptic Lectionary Data 1.3.1 lists these final chapters on Friday of the Sixth Week of Great Lent. On the following Friday it lists Genesis 49:33 and Genesis 50:1-26, Jacob’s death and burial. Reading these scenes together helps the fasting Christian remember that repentance prepares a life to be handed over to God, and teaches the living to care for the dead.4

Leave Nineveh and Believe the Prophets (Tobit 14:4-8)

4 Go into Media, my son, for I surely believe those things which Jonas the prophet spake of Nineve, that it shall be overthrown; and that for a time peace shall rather be in Media; and that our brethren shall lie scattered in the earth from that good land: and Jerusalem shall be desolate, and the house of God in it shall be burned, and shall be desolate for a time; 5 and that again God will have mercy on them, and bring them again into the land, where they shall build a temple, but not like to the first, until the time of that age be fulfilled; and afterward they shall return from all places of their captivity, and build up Jerusalem gloriously, and the house of God shall be built in it with a glorious building, as the prophets have spoken thereof.

6 And all nations shall turn, and fear the Lord God truly, and shall bury their idols. 7 So shall all nations praise the Lord, and his people shall confess God, and the Lord shall exalt his people; and all those which love the Lord God in truth and justice shall rejoice, shewing mercy to our brethren.

8 And now, my son, depart out of Nineve, because that those things which the prophet Jonas spake shall surely come to pass.

A note on the prophet’s name: Brenton reads “Jonas,” or Jonah, in Tobit 14:4 and Tobit 14:8, following the shorter Greek. The longer Greek in NETS names Nahum in Tobit 14:4; its Tobit 14:8-9 does not repeat the prophet’s name, but contains a different arrangement of Tobit’s exhortation. The difference is in the text form, not simply an English spelling.5

Jonah announces Nineveh’s overthrow, and the city repents and is spared (Jonah 3:4-10). Nahum proclaims judgment on the violent city in Nahum 3:1-7. Both help us hear Tobit’s warning soberly: a reprieve is a call to changed life, not immunity for violence renewed. His instruction to leave Nineveh is an act of believing God’s word about a city whose power still looks secure.

Map of the Assyrian Empire, the imperial setting of Tobit’s exile Historical map: Assyrian Empire, Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Jerusalem, too, faces desolation. Tobit’s hope passes through a burned sanctuary and a rebuilding “not like to the first.” Ezra 3:12-13 records elders weeping as the new foundation is laid; Haggai 2:3 asks who remembers the former house’s glory. A real restoration can remain incomplete. Tobit’s promise leaves room for that grief while looking beyond it.

Christ’s saying about the temple of His Body in John 2:19-21 brings Christian hope beyond the recovery of a building. The crucified Body is raised, and communion with God is gathered around Him. The nations turn and bury their idols. This conversion gives the judgment its wider horizon: what enslaved people is put away so that they may worship the living God.

Mercy, Burial, and the Wisdom of the End (Tobit 14:9-11)

9 But keep thou the law and the commandments, and shew thyself merciful and just, that it may go well with thee. 10 And bury me decently, and thy mother with me; but tarry no longer at Nineve. Remember, my son, how Aman handled Achiacharus that brought him up, how out of light he brought him into darkness, and how he rewarded him again: yet Achiacharus was saved, but the other had his reward: for he went down into darkness. Manasses gave alms, and escaped the snares of death which they had set for him: but Aman fell into the snare, and perished.

11 Wherefore now, my son, consider what alms doeth, and how righteousness doth deliver. When he had said these things, he gave up the ghost in the bed, being an hundred and eight and fifty years old; and he buried him honourably.

Mercy and justice belong beside the command to leave. Tobias cannot preserve his family simply by changing cities. He must preserve the commandments and honor the parents who formed him.

Achiacharus is Ahikar, Tobit’s nephew and earlier protector (Tobit 1:21-22; Tobit 2:10). The ancient Tale of Ahikar, whose oldest surviving copy is a fifth-century BC Aramaic papyrus from Elephantine in Egypt, tells of a wise official betrayed by the young man he raised.6 Tobit draws on that story of ingratitude and deliverance.

The names differ across the Greek forms. Where Brenton has Aman and later Manasses, NETS’s shorter Greek has Haman and Manasses; its longer Greek has Nadab and identifies the delivered almsgiver as Ahikar. The Aman in this episode belongs to Ahikar’s story, not the Persian court narrative of Esther. Brenton does not identify its Manasses as a king. The text supplies no basis for assigning this deliverance to a particular king’s life.5

Gems from the Fathers 💎: A father’s lasting provision

St. Cyprian of Carthage uses Tobit’s farewell in On Works and Alms, section 20, to urge parents to give children saving instruction. His appeal is brief and direct: “Be rather such a father to your children as was Tobias.”7 His Old Latin biblical wording differs from Brenton here and corresponds closely to the longer form’s charge to command the children to practice righteousness and almsgiving. The fuller treatment of his fatherly example belongs to the Tobit 4 study. Here it gives the deathbed its weight: Tobit is still providing for the children when he teaches them to remember God and care for others.

He dies after that charge. The man who risked his life to bury abandoned bodies is buried honorably by his son. The work of mercy has become an inheritance that Tobias can perform.

Tobias Lives Past Nineveh (Tobit 14:12-15)

12 And when Anna his mother was dead, he buried her with his father. But Tobias departed with his wife and children to Ecbatane to Raguel his father in law,

13 where he became old with honour; and he buried his father and mother in law honourably, and he inherited their substance, and his father Tobit’s. 14 And he died at Ecbatane in Media, being an hundred and seven and twenty years old. 15 But before he died he heard of the destruction of Nineve, which was taken by Nabuchodonosor and Assuerus: and before his death he rejoiced over Nineve.

Tobias buries Anna with Tobit, then takes Sarah and the children to Media. He also buries Raguel and Edna honorably. Love has obligations to both households; the son’s obedience survives the death of the father who taught it.

A note on Nineveh’s conquerors: Brenton names Nabuchodonosor and Assuerus; NETS’s shorter Greek similarly names Nabouchodonosor and Asoueros. NETS’s longer Greek instead names Achiacharos, king of Media, a different narrative role from the Ahikar recalled in verse 10. Historically, Nineveh fell in 612 BC to the Babylonians under Nabopolassar and the Medes under Cyaxares. These are distinct textual and historical reports; the names are not silently interchangeable.58

Tobias rejoices that Nineveh has fallen. For the exiled family, the city’s violence has not proved everlasting and God’s warning has not failed. That relief gives no permission to enjoy the suffering of ordinary people. The song has already called a sinful nation to repent, and its promised future brings nations together in worship.

The book’s last horizon is therefore larger than a ruined capital. Tobit has sung a city whose streets praise God. The family leaves Nineveh carrying a way of mercy toward that promised home. Christ, the risen Lord and light of the new Jerusalem, fulfills the hope that neither the empire nor the grave can finally hold His people.

Spiritual Fruit 🍇

  1. Repent before the warning grows familiar. Nineveh’s people turned from their violence. Name a concrete wrong that pious habits have allowed you to leave untouched, and bring it to confession with a beginning of amendment.

  2. Praise within the unfinished life. Tobit sings from captivity. Thank God for a mercy already received without pretending that the remaining wound has disappeared.

  3. Seek the city’s peace. Refuse the pleasure of repeating a parish grievance. Pray for a person involved and take one honest step toward reconciliation, without concealing harm or bypassing accountability.

  4. Leave an inheritance that can be practiced. Tell a child or younger person one true account of God’s mercy. Join it to a work of care you can do together, so the memory gains hands.

  5. Honor both households. Tobias cares for his parents and Sarah’s. Notice an elder whose needs have slipped behind other responsibilities, and arrange one dependable act of care.

  6. Hope without revenge. Ask God to end violence and defend its victims. Ask also for the repentance of those who do it. Judgment belongs to the Lord; cruelty must not become our pleasure.

Hear Tobit’s song before the city has been rebuilt. Bring Christ the unfinished work and the people you fear to leave behind. Place them in His keeping, then do the mercy still entrusted to you. Let the hope of Alleluia make today’s words gentler and today’s obedience more faithful.

Footnotes

  1. Compare eBible’s Brenton Tobit 13, labels 7a-7c, with KJV Apocrypha Tobit 13, verses 8-10. The opening and closing words establish each mapping; only labels and layout change. ↩

  2. Coptic Reader, Readings → Matins → Prophecies, February 4, 2026, third day of Jonah’s Fast, Jonah 3:1-4:11. This is the qualified dated witness used here, not a newly verified annual recurrence rule. ↩

  3. Coptic Reader, Special → Consecrations → Church → Part 4, retained service text. The printed heading is “Revelation 21”; its body contains verses 1-27, preceded by the rubric concerning the new Jerusalem’s foundation. This is the church-consecration service, not a separately inferred cornerstone or altar appointment. ↩

  4. Coptic Lectionary Data 1.3.1, Friday of the Sixth Week and Friday of the Seventh Week, morning prophecies. The Overview’s worship section distinguishes the package’s divisions from Coptic Reader’s dated witness. The Jacob parallel is a reading of the two scenes, not an assertion of the compilers’ intention. ↩

  5. Alexander A. Di Lella, NETS Tobit, “To the Reader,” and the parallel Greek I/Greek II translations of Tobit 14:4, Tobit 14:8-11, and Tobit 14:15, printed pages 476-477, Oxford/NETS edition. The manuscript-form distinction is not a correction of the displayed Brenton text. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  6. Ioannis M. Konstantakos, “Characters and Names in the Vita Aesopi and in the Tale of Ahiqar. Part I: Lykoros and Hermippos,” Hyperboreus 15.1 (2009), pages 111-112, scholarly article. ↩

  7. St. Cyprian of Carthage, On Works and Alms (Treatise VIII), section 20, Robert Ernest Wallis translation, Ante-Nicene Fathers 5, New Advent. Cyprian calls the father Tobias. His deathbed quotation is closer to the longer form’s Tobit 14:8-9, not a verbatim quotation of Brenton’s Tobit 14:9. ↩

  8. Fall of Nineveh Chronicle (ABC 3), year 14 of Nabopolassar, and historical introduction, Livius edition and explanation. ↩

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