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Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted Isa 53:4 |
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Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Wednesday, July 9, 2025
Today's Passage : Today's Passage:Introduction to the Book of Tobit BibleVerse:Tobit 1:1-8 "This is the book of Tobit, from the clan of Asiel in the Tribe of Naphtali, who lived in the lands north of Galilee and was taken captive by the Assyrians under King Salmanazar. All of my life, I have walked the path of righteousness. Even during this captivity and deportation to Nineveh, in Assyria, with my kinsmen, I have practiced charity, gathering food and items and distributing them among everyone. In my younger days, when I lived in my own country, Israel, all of my tribe left the ways of the house of David and his city, Jerusalem. This city held the Temple, the dwelling of God, built so that all tribes would have one holy place to offer sacrifice for all generations. But my kinsmen (and my entire tribe) instead began to sacrifice to the young bull that King Jeroboam had built in Dan. Four images of Baal Four statues of Baal The fourth is a bull like Jeroboam’s I would leave them and travel alone to Jerusalem for the festivals, as all the people of Israel are supposed to do. Even when I was a boy, and alone. And as decreed for all time, I would bring with me the first fruits of both field and flock, the first shearings of wool, and a tenth of my income for the priests descended from Aaron, at the altar. To these, the Levites, because they worked doing service in the Temple, I would bring also a tithe of grain, wine, olive oil, pomegranates, figs, and other fruits. There were other tithes: the second tithe (except in sabbatical years) of money, for the poor in Jerusalem, and a third tithe for widows, orphans, and converts in Naphtali, every third year. These offerings are laws of Moses, and I learned them from my grandmother, Deborah. My father, Tobiel, died and left me an orphan. I married Anna, from my clan, and had a son whom we named Tobiah." Message:
I thought we might intersperse our serious dive into Paul’s first epistles (1 Thessalonians and Galatians) with something out of the Old Testament, and also a bit lighter. Our study of the history and prophecy of the conquest (in 2 Kings) has opened a door to one of the gems of the Apocrypha, the book of Tobit. It isn’t terribly long, and it is interesting and even fun to read. Primarily it is the narrative of a Jew named Tobit who was captured by the Assyrians; the account of his adventures is interspersed with poetic and “wisdom” passages. Much of the action centers around his son Tobias, a relative named Sarah whom Tobias vows to marry, and the intervention in their affairs by the archangel Rafael.
Patrick Henry Reardon said of Tobit, “I like to think of the Book of Tobit as a kind of universal essay, in the sense that its author makes considerable effort to place his brief, rather simple narrative within a literary, historical, and moral universe of surprising breadth and diversity, extending through the Fertile Crescent and out both sides. To find comparable dimensions of such large cultural exposure among biblical authors, one would have to go to Ezekiel, Luke, or the narrator of Job.”
prophet Ezekiel
We might have well read Ezekiel instead of Tobit — we are at exactly the point in the Bible when he lived, i.e. during the Exile period (see chart.) — but Ezekiel, at 48 chapters, is a major undertaking; while Tobit is much shorter and tells an interesting story.
So, Tobit, a Jew of Naphtali who came of age just as Israel was being conquered. (Tobit says Naphtali is north of Galilee, but its south end included the “Galilee” region where Christ lived and taught.) In the Kingdom of Israel during the last days, when Baal worship had completely taken over the country, there were a few faithful Hebrews. We have seen several very vocal ones, in fact: the prophets Amos and Hosea. But it stands to reason that at least some people would have listened to the prophets and been in sympathy with them, and Tobit was such a person.
The first verses begin by showing his righteousness after his capture. His group of kinsmen were kept together after their capture, and Tobit spent his time and energy collecting food and probably other necessities of life, such as clothing, and distributing it to them. He took on this responsibility even though he had, apparently, only recently turned 20, the age of manhood in Hebrew society.
We then get a flashback of sorts. Tobit's righteousness had manifested before he was a man. As a boy, when all of his kin were going to worship at the golden calves built by Jeroboam, he would sneak off entirely on his own, to travel to Jerusalem and worship in the Temple. He kept such law as he understood, as there would have been no written record. It was passed down to him orally, from his grandmother Deborah, who must have raised him.
Note on the Translation
The origins of the Book of Tobit are chaotic, and there really is nothing close to a definitive text. It was most likely written originally in Greek, although it might have been written in Hebrew or Aramaic. One version in the Catholic Vulgate (405 A.D.) was derived by Jerome, who had only a copy in Aramaic, a language he did not know. So he had a scholar read the Aramaic version orally, but translating into Hebrew as he went, and then Jerome wrote it down in Latin!
I translated Tobit in 2014 by picking and choosing from several Greek sources, primarily the version in the Septuagint — the Greek Old Testament put together by Hellenized Jews in Alexandria around 250 BC. I have been informed, however, by Greek and Aramaic texts discovered after the Septuagint was written, as well as the Latin Vulgate and recent Catholic translations.
Meditation : “The prayer offered to God in the morning during your quiet time is the key that unlocks the door of the day. Any athlete knows that it is the start that ensures a good finish.” ~ Adrian Rogers Prayer : I dedicate this day to you, mighty God. I pray that your Spirit will lift me up this day, and that your face may shine upon me all the day long, that I might do your will and lead a new life in Christ, reborn in the Spirit. Amen. |
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