The Grave That Was Filled In Again

They came into Ecbatana in the evening and found the house of Raguel; and it was Sarah herself who came to the door and welcomed them in. And Raguel took one look at the young man and said to his wife, “Edna — how like my relative Tobit that boy is!” Then he said to them, ‘Where are you from, brothers?’ And they told him: we are of the sons of Naphtali, from the ones carried off to Nineveh. ‘Then do you know Tobit, our brother?’ said Raguel. And they said they knew him. ‘Is he well?’ ‘He is alive and well,’ they said. And then Tobias said, “He is my father.” And Raguel jumped up and threw his arms round him and kissed him and burst into tears, and said, “The son of a fine, good man!” And then somebody told him that Tobit had lost his sight, and he cried again; and Edna his wife cried, and Sarah their daughter cried. And then they killed a ram out of the flock and set out a great deal of food, because that is what you do when family arrives.

And in the middle of it all Tobias leaned over and said, “Brother Azariah — say the thing you said you would say. Let it be settled.” So Raphael said it to Raguel. And Raguel said, “Eat, and drink, and be merry. It is right that you should have my child. But I am going to tell you the truth first. I have given my girl to seven men, and every one of them died in the night. So — for now, be merry.” And Tobias said, “I will not taste one thing in this house until you have made an agreement with me.” And Raguel said, “Take her, then, from this moment, as the law says. You are her brother and she is yours. And may the merciful God prosper the two of you in the best way there is.” And he called Sarah, and took her by the hand, and put her hand into the hand of Tobias, and said, “Look — take her, according to the law of Moses, and take her home to your father.” And he blessed them. And he called Edna his wife, and took a scroll, and wrote out the marriage agreement on it, and they sealed it. And then everybody sat down to eat.

Later Raguel said to Edna, quietly, “Get the other room ready, sister, and take her in there.” So Edna did; and she went in with her daughter, and she cried. And she took her daughter’s tears onto her own face, and said, “Take heart, child. May the Lord of heaven and earth give you gladness in place of all this sorrow of yours. Take heart, daughter.”

And when supper was over they brought Tobias in to her, and shut the door. And Tobias remembered exactly what he had been told. He took the ashes of the incense, and laid the heart of the fish and its liver on them, and made the smoke. And the demon smelled it and fled — right away to the farthest corner of Egypt. And the messenger went after it and tied it up. And that was the end of that. Then Tobias got up off the bed and said, “Get up, sister. Let us pray, and ask the Lord to have mercy on us.” And the two of them stood in the dark, and Tobias prayed: “Blessed are you, God of our fathers, and blessed is your holy name for ever. Let the heavens bless you, and everything you have made. You made Adam, and you gave him Eve his wife to help him and hold him up, and all the people in the world came from those two. You said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone; let us make him a helper like himself.’ And now, Lord, I am not taking this sister of mine for any wrong reason, but truly. Be kind to me, and let the two of us grow old together.” And Sarah said it with him: “Amen.” And then the two of them went to sleep, and nothing whatever happened to anybody.

But out in the dark, Raguel had got up quietly and gone outside with a spade, and he was digging. He was digging a grave. He said to himself, ‘What if this one has died too?’ Then he came back into the house and said to Edna, “Send one of the servant girls in. Let her see whether he is alive. And if he is not, we will bury him before it gets light, and nobody need ever know.” So the servant girl took a lamp and opened the door and went in — and there were the two of them, fast asleep. And she came out and told them: he is alive. And Raguel blessed God and said, “Blessed are you, O God, with every clean and holy blessing. Let all your holy ones bless you, and everything you have made, and all your messengers and all the people you have chosen, for ever and ever. Blessed are you, because you have made me glad, and the thing I was afraid of has not happened. Blessed are you, because you have had mercy on two only children. Have mercy on them, Master, and bring their lives to the end in health and gladness.” And then he sent the servants out to fill the grave in again, quickly, before the sun came up. And then he threw a wedding party that went on for fourteen days. And before those fourteen days were out he made Tobias promise not to leave until every one of them was finished — and that when he did go, he would take half of everything Raguel owned home with him, and have the other half when Raguel and Edna were dead.

Then Tobias called Raphael and said, “Brother Azariah, take a servant and two camels and go on to Rages, to Gabael. Fetch me the money, and bring Gabael back for the wedding. Raguel has made me promise not to leave — and my father is counting the days. If I am too long, it will break his heart.” So Raphael went, and stayed the night with Gabael, and gave him the written note; and Gabael brought out the money bags with the seals still on them and handed them over. And the two of them got up at dawn and came back to the wedding. And Tobias blessed his wife.

And in Nineveh, Tobit was counting. Every single day he counted. And when the number of days the journey should have taken had all gone by, and the boy did not come, he said, “Something has gone wrong. Or else Gabael has died, and there is nobody left to hand over the money.” And he was terribly upset. And his wife said, “The child is dead. He has been away too long.” And she began to wail out loud for him, and she said, “Do you think I do not care that I let you go — you, the light of my eyes?” And Tobit said, “Be quiet. Do not upset yourself. He is well.” And she said, “Be quiet yourself. Do not lie to me. My child is dead.” And every day she walked out to the road he had gone away along, and looked down it as far as she could see. She ate no bread in the daytime, and she cried all night, for the whole fourteen days of that wedding.

And at last Tobias said, “Send me home. My father and my mother have given up hoping to see me.” And his father-in-law said: stay with me, and I will send word to your father and tell him how you are. And Tobias said, “No. Send me home to my father.” So Raguel got up and gave him Sarah his wife, and half of everything he had — servants and cattle and silver. And he blessed them and sent them off, and said, “The God of heaven prosper you, children, before I die.” And he said to his daughter, “Honor your husband’s father and mother. They are your father and mother now. And may I hear good things about you.” And he kissed her. And Edna said to Tobias, “Dear brother, may the Lord of heaven bring you home again, and may he let me live to see your children and Sarah’s, so that I can be glad in front of the Lord. And look — I am putting my daughter into your hands, like something left with you for safe keeping. Do not make her sad.” And Tobias went on his way, blessing God, because his journey had gone so well.

And when they were nearly at Nineveh, Raphael said, “Do you remember, brother, the state your father was in when you left him? Let us run on ahead of your wife and get the house ready. And carry the gall of the fish in your hand.” So the two of them went on ahead; and the dog came trotting along behind them. And Anna was sitting where she always sat now, looking out along the road for her boy. And she caught sight of him coming, and she said to his father, “Look — your son is coming! And the man who went with him!” And Raphael said to Tobias as they came up, “I know that your father is going to open his eyes. Rub the gall on them. It will sting him, and he will rub them himself, and the white films will come away, and he will see you.” And Anna ran out and threw her arms round her son’s neck and said, “I have seen you, child. Now I can die.” And the two of them cried. And Tobit was coming out towards the door, stumbling as he came; and his son ran to him and caught hold of him, and put the gall on his father’s eyes, and said, “Take heart, father.” And Tobit’s eyes smarted, and he rubbed them — and the white films peeled away from the corners of his eyes, and there was his son, standing in front of him. And he fell on his neck and cried, and said, “Blessed are you, O God, and blessed is your name for ever, and blessed are all your holy messengers. You let me be hurt, and you have had mercy on me. Look. I can see Tobias my son.” And Tobias came in laughing, and told his father everything that had happened to him in Media. And Tobit walked out to the gate of Nineveh to meet his daughter-in-law, seeing every step of the way; and the people who watched him walking there could hardly believe it, and he thanked God out loud in front of all of them. And when Sarah came up he blessed her and said, “Welcome, daughter. Blessed be God, who has brought you to us; and blessed be your father and your mother.” And there was a wedding all over again in Nineveh, seven days of it, and every relative they had was glad.

And then Tobit said to his son, “We must see to the wages of the man who traveled with you, child. And we ought to add something more for him.” And Tobias said, “Father, it would do me no harm at all to give him half of everything I have brought back. He brought me home safe and sound. He healed my wife. He fetched my money. And he healed you.” And the old man said, “It is his by right.” So they called him in and told him: take half of everything. And instead of taking it, he took the two of them aside, on their own, and said, “Bless God, and thank him. Tell people how great he is. Say out loud, in front of everybody alive, what he has done for you, and do not be slow about thanking him. A king’s secret is a good thing to keep quiet — but what God does should be told, and told with honor. Do good, and evil will not find you.” And he went on, “Praying, and going without food, and being kind to people who need it: those are all good. A little, honestly come by, is better than a great deal got wrongly. It is better to be kind than to store up gold. For kindness rescues a person from death, and washes away every sin.” And then he told them what nobody had guessed. “I will hide nothing from you now. When you prayed — you, and Sarah your daughter-in-law — it was I who carried the memory of your prayer up in front of the Holy One. And when you buried the dead, I was standing there beside you. When you got up from your dinner and left it and went to lay out that dead man, I did not miss it. I was with you. And now God has sent me to make you well, you and Sarah your daughter-in-law. I am Raphael. I am one of the seven holy messengers who carry the prayers of God’s people up, and go in before the glory of the Holy One.” And the two of them shook all over, and fell down on their faces, because they were frightened. And he said, “Do not be afraid. Peace be with you. Bless God for ever. It was not any kindness of my own that brought me here; it was the will of our God. So bless him for ever. All that time you were looking at me, I never ate anything and I never drank anything: what you were looking at was a vision. Now give thanks to God — for I am going back up to the one who sent me. And write down in a book everything that has happened.” And they got up off the ground; and he was not there. They never saw him again.

And Tobit wrote a song out of pure gladness. This is some of it: “Blessed be God, who lives for ever, and blessed be his kingdom. He wounds, and he shows mercy; he brings people down to Hades, and he brings them up again, and there is nobody at all who can slip out of his hand. Give thanks to him, children of Israel, in front of the nations he has scattered you among. Show them how great he is. He is our Lord and our God, and he is our Father for ever and ever.” And he sang, “Turn back to him with your whole heart and your whole soul, and do what is true in front of him, and he will turn back to you, and he will not hide his face from you. Here in the country I was carried away to, I give him thanks. Turn back, and do what is right: who knows but he will take you, and be kind to you?” And then he sang about Jerusalem, which he had not seen since he was a young man: “Jerusalem, holy city — many nations will come from far away with gifts in their hands for the King of heaven. Blessed are all the people who love you. Your walls and your towers will be built with sapphire and emerald and precious stone and pure gold, and the streets of Jerusalem will be paved with beryl and stone from Ophir; and every lane in her will say ‘Hallelujah,’ and everybody will say, ‘Blessed be God, who has lifted her up for ever.’”

Tobit was fifty-eight years old when he went blind, and eight years later he could see again. And after that he went on doing the same things he had always done: helping people, thanking God, being careful, being kind. And he grew very, very old. And at the end he called his son and his son’s sons in, and said, “Take your sons and go away out of Nineveh, child. I am ready to go out of this life, and I am certain that everything the prophet Jonah said about this city is going to happen to it. Go into Media. Keep the law. Be a man who loves mercy. And bury me properly, and your mother beside me — and do not stay in Nineveh a day longer than you must.” And he told them the rest of what he was sure of: that Jerusalem would be laid waste too, and God’s house in it burned down; and that God would have mercy again and bring his people home, and the house would be built again, more glorious than the first one; and that all the nations of the earth would turn and bury their idols in the ground and bless the Lord. And then he told them one more story, an old one out of their own family: how a man named Aman set a trap for Achiacharus, who had brought him up, and led him out of the light into the dark — and how Achiacharus came out of it alive, and Aman fell into the very trap he had dug. And Tobit said, “See what kindness does, children. See what it saves a person from.” And while he was still saying it, he died there on his bed. He was a hundred and fifty-eight years old, and his son buried him with honor. And when Anna died, Tobias buried her beside his father. And then he took Sarah and their sons and went away to Ecbatana, to Raguel and Edna, and looked after them until they died, and buried them with honor too. And Tobias grew old there, and was well thought of, and died at a hundred and twenty-seven. And before he died, word came that Nineveh had fallen — the city his father had told him to leave. And he was glad.