Twin Prayers in Anguish: Tobit and Sarah

Tobit’s Prayer Then in my grief I wept, and I prayed in anguish, saying, “Righteous art thou, O Lord; all thy deeds and all thy ways are mercy and truth, and thou dost render true and righteous judgment for ever. Remember me and look favorably upon me; do not punish me for my sins and for my unwitting offenses and those which my fathers committed before thee. For they disobeyed thy commandments, and thou gavest us over to plunder, captivity, and death; thou madest us a byword of reproach in all the nations among which we have been dispersed. And now thy many judgments are true in exacting penalty from me for my sins and those of my fathers, because we did not keep thy commandments. For we did not walk in truth before thee. And now deal with me according to thy pleasure; command my spirit to be taken up, that I may depart and become dust. For it is better for me to die than to live, because I have heard false reproaches, and great is the sorrow within me. Command that I now be released from my distress to go to the eternal abode; do not turn thy face away from me.” Sarah Falsely Accused On the same day, at Ecbat′ana in Media, it also happened that Sarah, the daughter of Rag′uel, was reproached by her father’s maids, because she had been given to seven husbands, and the evil demon Asmode′us had slain each of them before he had been with her as his wife. So the maids said to her, “Do you not know that you strangle your husbands? You already have had seven and have had no benefit from any of them. Why do you beat us? If they are dead, go with them! May we never see a son or daughter of yours!” Sarah’s Prayer for Death When she heard these things she was deeply grieved, even to the thought of hanging herself. But she said, “I am the only child of my father; if I do this, it will be a disgrace to him, and I shall bring his old age down in sorrow to the grave.” So she prayed by her window and said, “Blessed art thou, O Lord my God, and blessed is thy holy and honored name for ever. May all thy works praise thee for ever. And now, O Lord, I have turned my eyes and my face toward thee. Command that I be released from the earth and that I hear reproach no more. Thou knowest, O Lord, that I am innocent of any sin with man, and that I did not stain my name or the name of my father in the land of my captivity. I am my father’s only child, and he has no child to be his heir, no near kinsman or kinsman’s son for whom I should keep myself as wife. Already seven husbands of mine are dead. Why should I live? But if it be not pleasing to thee to take my life, command that respect be shown to me and pity be taken upon me, and that I hear reproach no more.” An Answer to Prayer The prayer of both was heard in the presence of the glory of the great God. And Raph′ael was sent to heal the two of them: to scale away the white films of Tobit’s eyes; to give Sarah the daughter of Rag′uel in marriage to Tobi′as the son of Tobit, and to bind Asmode′us the evil demon, because Tobi′as was entitled to possess her. At that very moment Tobit returned and entered his house and Sarah the daughter of Rag′uel came down from her upper room.

Tobit 3:1–17 records two geographically distant prayers rising like incense at the same hour: Tobit in Nineveh mourning the exile of Israel, and Sarah in Ecbatana weeping over the loss of seven husbands to the demon Asmodeus. Both confessions converge on the same confession — God is righteous, God is just, and the sufferer is not innocent.