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Tobit 3 - Two Prayers Heard Before God

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

After the quarrel with Anna, Tobit is left with tears; in another city, Sarah is left with a household’s cruel accusations. Tobit 3 brings these two sorrows before God on the same day. Their prayers rise separately, each from a life that has become almost unbearable. Before either sees an answer, the chapter tells us that Raphael has been sent to heal them both.

Their first words are striking. Tobit confesses that God is just; Sarah blesses His holy name. They bring anguish into prayer without disguising its severity. Their requests for death show how narrow the future has become in their eyes. God’s answer will reopen that future.

Tobit Prays from Grief, Not Rebellion (Tobit 3:1-6)

1 Then I being grieved did weep, and in my sorrow prayed, saying, 2 O Lord, thou art just, and all thy works and all thy ways are mercy and truth, and thou judgest truly and justly for ever. 3 Remember me, and look on me; punish me not for my sins and ignorances, and the sins of my fathers, who have sinned before thee: 4 for they obeyed not thy commandments: wherefore thou hast delivered us for a spoil, and unto captivity, and unto death, and for a proverb of reproach to all the nations among whom we are dispersed.

5 And now thy judgments are many and true: deal with me according to my sins and my fathers’; because we have not kept thy commandments, neither have walked in truth before thee. 6 Now therefore deal with me as seemeth best unto thee, and command my spirit to be taken from me, that I may be dissolved, and become earth: for it is profitable for me to die rather than to live, because I have heard false reproaches, and have much sorrow: command therefore that I may now be delivered out of this distress, and go into the everlasting place: turn not thy face away from me.

Tobit begins with God’s character before he speaks of his distress: “thou art just,” and His ways are “mercy and truth.” These are words learned within Israel’s life with God. In the Prayer of Azariah, Greek Daniel 3:27, a faithful exile in the furnace similarly confesses that God’s works, ways, and judgments are true. The settings differ, but both prayers hold suffering and reverence together. The calamity before the eyes does not become the measure of God’s goodness.

Tobit’s confession then widens from his own sins to Israel’s disobedience and dispersion. Daniel 9:4-19, Baruch 1:15-22, and Baruch 2:1-10 speak in the same communal voice: the exile stands among his people and their fathers, acknowledging a history in which he shares. Daniel’s appeal rests on God’s compassion rather than Israel’s righteousness. Tobit likewise asks to be remembered and looked upon. His confession does not prove that blindness is punishment for a particular sin; the preceding chapter places that wound after an act of mercy. Covenant repentance and unjust suffering can inhabit the same prayer.

Yet the prayer also follows Tobit’s refusal to believe Anna. He asks God to look on him while the reader still remembers the wife whose truthful account he has rejected. No apology to her is narrated here. Prayer begins to carry a wounded man toward healing; it does not make the person he has wounded disappear. Our confession before God can prepare us to hear another person more honestly when we rise from prayer.

Then comes the terrible request: “it is profitable for me to die rather than to live.” Jonah 4:3 uses almost the same words about Nineveh, the city where Tobit now lives. Jonah speaks from anger at God’s mercy; Tobit speaks from sorrow and false reproach. The verbal echo brings their distress into relation without making their motives identical. In 1 Kings 19:4-8, Elijah also asks to die. God answers the exhausted prophet with rest, food, and strength for the road. Scripture gives anguish a voice while showing that the sufferer’s wish need not be God’s final word.

Tobit entrusts his life to the Lord: “deal with me as seemeth best unto thee.” Yet a prayer uttered at the edge of endurance is not a model requiring us to desire death. This passage offers no permission for self-harm. Severe distress calls for companionship, protection, and practical care as well as prayer. His last plea, “turn not thy face away from me,” keeps the relationship open even when he cannot picture recovery.

Christ’s prayer in Gethsemane brings this surrender to its perfect fulfillment (Luke 22:42-44). The Lord’s sinless obedience is greater than Tobit’s wounded prayer; He freely gives His life for our salvation. In Him, the distressed person can bring an unfinished, trembling prayer to the Father rather than waiting to become composed enough to pray.

Sarah Is Wounded by Shame and Cruel Speech (Tobit 3:7-10)

7 It came to pass the same day, that in Ecbatane a city of Media, Sara the daughter of Raguel was also reproached by her father’s maids; 8 because that she had been married to seven husbands, whom Asmodeus the evil spirit had killed, before they had lain with her. Dost thou not know, said they, that thou hast strangled thine husbands? thou hast had already seven husbands, neither wast thou named after any of them. 9 Wherefore dost thou beat us for them? if they be dead, go thy ways after them, let us never see of thee either son or daughter. 10 When she heard these things she was very sorrowful, so that she thought to have strangled herself; and she said, I am the only daughter of my father, and if I do this, it shall be a reproach unto him, and I shall bring his old age with sorrow unto the grave.

“The same day” carries us from Nineveh to Ecbatana. Sarah’s husbands have been killed by Asmodeus, but her father’s maids accuse her of strangling them. The narrator has already named the killer. Their charge is false, and their wish that she follow the dead turns bereavement into an assault on her life and hope.

The maids’ question, “Wherefore dost thou beat us for them?”, also reveals a troubled household relationship. Their words describe Sarah beating them; she is not presented as merely passive in the conflict. The narrative gives no separate account of the incident or her motive. Her own conduct toward the servants remains morally serious, without making her responsible for the deaths that the text attributes to the evil spirit. A sufferer can need repentance for one action while being entirely innocent of another accusation. Compassion does not require flattening Sarah into a flawless figure.

Verse 10 names her thought of taking her own life and then her restraint: she remembers her father and the sorrow her death would bring him. This remembrance keeps a thread of relationship alive, but it is not a reason to burden people in crisis with further guilt. Sarah’s life is precious in itself, before God. A person who recognizes this despair needs immediate human support, not isolation or a demand to become stronger alone. Prayer and professional care belong together; urgent danger calls for urgent help.

The next step in Sarah’s story is prayer. The maids have spoken as though her future were closed. She turns to the One before whom their accusation cannot define her.

Sarah Turns Her Face Toward God (Tobit 3:11-15)

11 Then she prayed toward the window, and said, Blessed art thou, O Lord my God, and thine holy and glorious name is blessed and honourable for ever: let all thy works praise thee for ever. 12 And now, O Lord, I set mine eyes and my face toward thee, 13 and say, Take me out of the earth, that I may hear no more the reproach. 14 Thou knowest, Lord, that I am pure from all sin with man, 15 and that I never polluted my name, nor the name of my father, in the land of my captivity: I am the only daughter of my father, neither hath he any child to be his heir, neither any near kinsman, nor any son of his alive, to whom I may keep myself for a wife: my seven husbands are already dead; and why should I live? but if it please not thee that I should die, command some regard to be had of me, and pity taken of me, that I hear no more reproach.

Sarah blesses God before asking for release from reproach. Worship gives her another voice besides the voices that have wounded her. The maids have told her to disappear without son or daughter; she asks all God’s works to praise Him. For a moment, her prayer reaches beyond the future that seems closed to her. She then sets her eyes and face toward the Lord, bringing her whole person into the appeal: look upon me according to the truth You know.

Her prayer toward the window belongs beside Daniel 6:10 (Brenton 6:11), where Daniel’s windows open toward Jerusalem. Solomon had prayed that God would hear His people when they turned toward their land, city, and temple from captivity (1 Kings 8:48-50). Tobit does not tell us which direction Sarah’s window faces, so her posture is an echo of exile prayer, not proof of an identical arrangement. Far from the temple, the captive is still within God’s hearing. Christ’s promise that the Father sees in secret (Matthew 6:6) discloses the intimacy of that hearing.

When Sarah declares herself “pure from all sin with man,” the surrounding words concern her chastity, marriage, and family name. She is denying sexual wrongdoing and the disgrace charged against her, not claiming absolute sinlessness. Her prayer does not erase the servants’ complaint about her conduct. Nor does that complaint make their murderous accusation true. Repentance answers actual sin; it does not require accepting a false charge in order to seem humble.

Her appeal also carries a fear about the continuation of her father’s household. She is his only daughter, with no son or apparent near kinsman available to marry her. In Numbers 27:1-11, the daughters of a man who died without sons receive their father’s inheritance. Numbers 36:6-9 then directs heiresses to marry within their father’s tribe so that its inheritance remains there. The law preserves their choice within that boundary: they may marry where they please within the tribe. Sarah’s concern is therefore about family continuity as well as personal loneliness.

This background helps explain “by right of inheritance” in Tobit 3:17. The story presents Tobias as the kinsman through whom her father’s household can continue. The laws in Numbers establish inheritance and tribal marriage principles; they do not by themselves name Tobias as her husband. The marriage-and-inheritance pattern also appears in Ruth 3:9-13 and Ruth 4:1-10, where Boaz acts after a nearer relative relinquishes his right. These are related patterns of kinship responsibility, not identical legal cases. Sarah is a living person seeking mercy, never a possession whose wishes can be ignored.

Her prayer ends with an opening that her despair had almost closed: “but if it please not thee that I should die.” She asks for regard and pity. She cannot yet name the deliverance to come, but she leaves room for God’s will to be larger than the future she can see.

God Hears Both Prayers as One Story (Tobit 3:16-17)

16 So the prayers of them both were heard before the majesty of the great God. 17 And Raphael was sent to heal them both, that is, to scale away the whiteness of Tobit’s eyes, and to give Sara the daughter of Raguel for a wife to Tobias the son of Tobit: and to bind Asmodeus the evil spirit; because she belonged to Tobias by right of inheritance. The self-same time came Tobit home, and entered into his house, and Sara the daughter of Raguel came down from her upper chamber.

“Both” is the decisive word. Heaven receives together what two households experience separately. Both have asked to be released from life; God sends Raphael “to heal them both.” His answer addresses the wounds beneath their requests: Tobit’s loss of sight, Sarah’s bereavement and reproach, and the evil spirit who has killed her husbands. Their lives will be joined through Tobias, whose marriage will become part of God’s answer to both households. “To scale away the whiteness” points ahead to Tobit 11:13, when the whiteness peels away and Tobit sees his son.

The book later explains what “heard” means. In Tobit 12:12-15, Raphael says that he brought the remembrance of Tobit’s and Sarah’s prayers before the Holy One, and that God sent him to heal them. The angel serves God’s mercy; he is not an independent source of salvation. Revelation 8:3-4 gives a related vision: the prayers of the saints ascend before God with incense from the angel’s hand. Earthly prayer belongs within the worship of heaven even when the person praying feels unheard.

The final sentence returns us to ordinary life. Tobit enters his house; Sarah comes down from her upper chamber. Neither has yet seen Raphael. Here providence means God’s care joining lives beyond their present knowledge, rather than an explanation of every sorrow. This particular answer is a promise within Tobit’s story, not a guarantee that every distressed person will receive marriage, restored sight, or a quick solution. Christian hope rests finally in Christ, whose Resurrection reveals that death cannot close the future God gives His people (1 Corinthians 15:20-22).

Gems from the Fathers 💎

St. Cyprian of Carthage draws directly on Tobit in On the Lord’s Prayer, sections 32-33. Section 32 cites Tobit 12:8 to join prayer, fasting, and almsgiving; section 33 recalls Raphael’s testimony about Tobit and Sarah. He calls the angel a witness to “the constant prayer and the constant good works of Tobias”1. Cyprian is reading the later revelation in Tobit 12, which sheds light on the two prayers here. His concern is that the mouth asking mercy should belong to a life learning to show mercy.

He then brings Isaiah 58:6-9 alongside Raphael’s words: releasing the oppressed, sharing bread, sheltering the poor, and clothing the naked belong with the cry God hears. Prayer reaches into contracts, possessions, and treatment of our neighbors. For Tobit, that includes both his costly care for the dead and the truthfulness still needed toward Anna. Cyprian’s exhortation presses us to bring our deeds into agreement with our petitions. It gives no warrant for telling a person in anguish that suffering proves a failure to pray or give enough.

Origen also explicitly joins Tobit 3:16-17 with Raphael’s testimony in On Prayer 11.1, describing the angel’s service on behalf of Tobit and Sarah.2 That passage is considered more fully in the Tobit 11-12 study. Both writers turn our attention from an isolated cry to prayer received within God’s care and the ministry of His servants.

The Church’s Voice in Worship 📖

On Friday of the Sixth Week of Great Lent, Coptic Reader’s morning prophecies include Tobit’s two prayers within the whole-book sequence. The Katameros cycle distinguishes Tobit’s lament, Sarah’s distress and prayer, and the announcement that both have been heard.3 Its three reading ranges are listed in the Source notes.

Reader uses larger blocks and different verse divisions. That same morning includes Job 36:1-33 and Job 37:1-24. Job and Tobit are heard within the same Lenten course, allowing the fasting Church to listen to righteous sufferers rather than making discipline a measure of immunity from sorrow. Tobit’s confession and Sarah’s blessing give grief words addressed to God. A seventh Lenten week still follows before Palm Sunday.

Spiritual Fruit 🍇

  1. Bring the unfinished prayer. If exhaustion has reduced prayer to “look on me,” offer those words without pretending to feel peaceful. Tobit begins in tears, and Sarah begins under reproach. Ask a trusted person to pray with you when praying alone has become difficult.

  2. Separate repentance from false blame. Sarah’s conflict with the servants and her innocence of her husbands’ deaths are different matters. Confess actual wrongdoing, including harshness toward those under your authority. Refuse to pass on an accusation simply because the person accused has other faults.

  3. Make care concrete. Elijah received rest and food; Sarah’s restraint began with a remembered relationship. A call, a shared meal, or accompanying someone to professional care can serve the person whose distress we have remembered in prayer. If you are in danger, seek immediate help and stay with someone safe.

  4. Pray for people beyond your own room. Tobit and Sarah are heard together. Name before God someone whose grief you cannot fix, and ask what kindness is actually yours to offer. The Lord’s Prayer makes this breadth part of our daily worship: “our” Father gathers us rather than sealing each person inside a private sorrow (Matthew 6:9-13).

Tobit goes into his house, and Sarah comes down from her upper chamber. The same familiar rooms receive them, yet their prayers have been heard. We can place before Christ the sorrow that will still be present when prayer ends. Let the next step be taken with someone who can help, and with the little strength that remains. God’s hearing does not depend on our ability to describe the whole road.

Footnotes

  1. St. Cyprian of Carthage, On the Lord’s Prayer (Treatise IV), sections 32-33; the quotation is from section 33. Translated by Robert Ernest Wallis, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 5, as presented by New Advent. Cyprian cites Tobit 12:8 and Tobit 12:12-15; this is a witness to Tobit’s prayer and mercy through Raphael’s testimony. ↩ ↩2

  2. Origen, On Prayer, conventional section 11.1, within W. Curtis’s Chapter VI, “Answer to Objections: He Who Prays Prays Not Alone,” CCEL; the same paragraph is on Elpenor page 24. The conventional section is confirmed in the Greek-English text, 11.1. Origen explicitly cites Tobit 3:16-17 and Tobit 12:12, 15. Curtis’s chapter heading and the conventional section number are different locators for the same passage, not Elpenor’s web-page number. ↩

  3. Coptic Reader, Readings → Matins → Prophecies, March 27, 2026, Friday of the Sixth Week of Great Fast. Reader prints larger Tobit blocks and Job 37:1-24. The three chapter divisions listed here come from the pierresaid Katameros cycle, distributed in @andraws/lectionary-data@1.3.1; its Job 37 endpoint differs from Reader. ↩

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