Scene 3: The Ancient Book of Tobit

Since Tobit had prayed for death, he set about preparing for it. After calling for his son, Tobias, he scooted into the cool shade of a fig tree and rubbed his unseeing eyes. Then he snorted at his foolishness. Did he think he could wipe away his blindness?

Tobias’s footsteps approached with a confident stride. “You wanted to see me, Father?”

Tobit couldn’t help but smile. His son was tall now, and though still young, he was fully a man. Tobit wished he could see Tobias’s face, newly bearded, and his dark eyes, surely as handsome as his mother’s.

As Tobias sat beside him, Tobit felt for his son’s broad back. “I wish to speak to you of my death.”

“But Father,” Tobias protested, “you’re healthy still.”

Tobit held up his hand. “One never knows about the matter of death. You are apprenticed to the scribes. Excel in your work. Make yourself worthy of the highest positions in the land, for when I die, you must provide for your mother as long as she lives. When she dies, bury her in my grave beside me. Always give your surplus to the poor. Be sure to take a wife from among our people. And ask advice of every wise man.”

Tobias cleared his throat. “All this I will do, Father. But may God give you a long life so that you may be that wise man.”

“We don’t know the future.” Tobit patted his son’s well-muscled shoulder. “I deposited ten talents of silver with Gabel in Ragae in Media. Go and ask for it.” He pressed a receipt into Tobias’s palm. “Find someone to travel with you. I’ll pay him.”

Tobias stuffed the receipt into his waist sash and reluctantly left to tell friends and trustworthy acquaintances that he sought a traveling companion. But two days of searching yielded no one able – or willing – to travel to Ragae. On the third day, Babin the wool merchant pointed him to a broad-shouldered man wandering through the crowd at the bazaar.

“But he’s a stranger,” said Tobias. “Do you think he’s honest?”

Babin shrugged. “The man bought bread, and when old Marya gave him too much change, he gave the coins back. With interest!”

Tobias eased closer to the cloaked man, whose brown hair was streaked in red. The man, a head taller than the shoppers milling around him, was watching the bladesmith sharpen a knife. As Tobias edged nearer, he turned, looked Tobias up and down, and smiled. “You may be just the companion I’m looking for. I’m traveling to Ragae and would rather go in company. I’ll pay you if you’re interested.”

Tobias blinked in surprise. “Ragae? You would pay . . . me?” It was supposed to work the other way around.

“If you’re willing to travel.” The man wore a thin leather band across his forehead, and when he offered Tobias a round of bread, his cloak gaped, revealing the silver hilt of a sword. “I’ve no cart or donkeys, so we’ll go by foot. And we leave today.”

“I, too, must go to Ragae.” Tobias took the bread. “But I’ll have to run home and fetch a journey pack.”

“Of course.” The man examined a knife from the display of wares. “You’ll find me somewhere around here when you’re ready to go.”

Tobias half bowed and wormed through the crowd, munching on the herb-flavored bread, but he went only a stone’s throw before he realized he had no idea who the man was. He wove his way back to the man. “Excuse me, sir,” he said. “My name is Tobias. And you?”

“Raphael.”

Tobias bowed back through the crowd and headed home, hoping the stranger with the silver-hilted sword was trustworthy.

- to be continued -

© 2012 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Based on The Book of Tobit, circa 200 BCE. Photo courtesy clipart.com.

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Scene 2: The Ancient Book of Tobit

The physician examined Tobit’s eyes. “You’re blind,” he said.

“I know,” snapped Tobit. “That’s why I’m here! Is there no cure?”

“Not with me.” The doctor placed a hand on Tobit’s slumped shoulders. “No doctor can heal the blind.”

Tobit hunched over as if he were already the beggar he feared he would become. This doctor had been his last hope. One physician had given him a worthless salve. Another had told him to place goat liver on his eyes each night. At least this doctor was honest.

Tobit did lose his job, for his nephew, royal cupbearer and signet keeper, had no use for a blind assistant. Fortunately his nephew held a strong sense of family loyalty and supported Tobit for two years until the royal position was moved to Elymais. Then Tobit’s wife, Hannah, joined a group of women who took mending and weaving jobs. Tobit had been ashamed of living off his nephew. Depending on his wife’s earnings caused his shame to grow dark and bitter.

One day as Tobit sat in his courtyard trying to weave a basket and failing miserably, he heard Hannah returning home. As the gate scraped open, he heard a bleat. He scowled and growled, “Where did you get a goat? Is it stolen? Take it back to its owner. We’ve no right to eat someone else’s goat.”

“The goat was a gift,” said Hannah. “Given in addition to my wages.”

Tobit’s hands curled into fists. “You would steal and lie about it as well?”

“You!” Hannah blurted. “You once believed in charity. You gave to the needy. But when we need help, you refuse it. Charity travels two directions. Had you never thought of that?”

Tobit’s mouth fell open at such a sharp tone from his sweet Hannah. “I –”

“Don’t say it,” she snapped. “You know everything. Of course!” Her footsteps faded around the side of the house, along with the bleating.

Tobit smacked the wall with his fist as tears welled in his eyes. “Look at me, Lord! I’m not only blind but ignorant as well. I’d rather die than live. Release my spirit from this life, and return my body to dust.”

Miles away in Ecbatana, a young woman named Sarah knelt by her window and prayed, “Lord, I turn my face and eyes to you. Release my spirit from this life, and return my body to dust.” She bowed her head and wept.

Sarah had been widowed seven times, each husband dying before the wedding night – and she was still young. She had hardly left childhood when her father, Raguel, had first bargained her in marriage to seal a prestigious business deal. But after the wedding, as Sarah and her new husband entered the private bridal chamber, a dark cloud rose from the rushes on the floor and wove itself into the form of the horned demon Asmodeus. Before either bride or groom could cry out, the demon’s clawed hands gripped the thick throat of the bridegroom and squeezed away his life. Sarah ran.

By the time Sarah returned with help, the demon had vanished, leaving behind the stench of death and hell. Sarah’s father immediately arranged another advantageous union. But on the wedding night, Asmodeus reappeared, and the second bridegroom died. All in all, seven husbands married Sarah, each claiming to be braver and more worthy than the last. Each had died in Asmodeus’s murderous grip, leaving Sarah young and lovely, but unloved.

Townsfolk muttered, “She strangles her husbands before they reach the bed.” The household maids whispered, “She might as well follow her bridegrooms to the grave. She’ll never see husband or children while she’s alive.”

Now at her window, Sarah bowed her head. “Why must I live any longer?” she moaned.

In the heavens, the angel Raphael shook back his windblown brown hair, angled his head, and listened to the burbling stream of voices, soul songs flowing in gratitude, pain, delight . . . and despair. His dark, compassionate eyes scanned the earth and focused on two desperate prayers. Tobit. Sarah. They didn’t live too far from each other. He spread his golden wings and began his descent.

- to be continued -

© 2012 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Based on The Book of Tobit, circa 200 BCE. Photo courtesy morguefile.

 

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Scene 1: The Ancient Book of Tobit

Tobit had a habit of burying corpses that no one else would touch. No one dared, because the unfortunate dead, usually fugitives from Judea, had met their demise by somehow angering the Assyrian king. Anyone killed due to royal spite was better left to the king’s own methods of disposal.

But to Tobit’s way of thinking, these poor souls were his own people and deserved burial, even in foreign Nineveh. So the day when his son, Tobias, dashed in the door crying, “Father, there’s a strangled man in the bazaar,” it didn’t matter that Tobit had just sat down to his wife’s fine meal. He leaped up and barreled out of the house without taking a bite.

Tobit glanced at his lanky son trotting beside him and warmed with pride. Barely a man, Tobias had already inherited his father’s compassion. But Tobit’s pride cooled considerably when he thought of the danger. Anyone who buried a body killed at the king’s discretion risked the death penalty. Under Shalmaneser’s rule, Tobit himself had barely escaped such a fate. While he was in hiding, all his property had been seized. He had returned to his wife and son in Nineveh only because Shalmaneser had been murdered and the new king had chosen Tobit’s nephew as cupbearer and keeper of the signet. Still, no one could predict a king’s mind, especially in matters of life and death.

“You’ll stay back and mix with the crowd,” said Tobit. “I’ll retrieve the body.”

“But I can be of help,” said Tobias.

“You’ll help by staying back unless I motion for you,” said Tobit. He would not endanger his son unless it was necessary. Besides, touching the corpse would make him ceremonially unclean for a few days, and he wanted to spare Tobias the  inconvenience.

The sounds and smells of the bazaar increased at they approached. Fragrant perfumes and pungent spices lured shoppers to one section. The reek of goats and pigeons drew buyers to another. Hawkers shouted. Pack mules brayed. Camels yawped.

Tobit and Tobias shouldered through the crowd, brushing past gossips, listening for comments about where the body lay. Knowing most people would avoid the corpse, Tobit craned his neck to see where the crowd thinned. When he spied the body, half-hidden by a pile of hides, he motioned Tobias aside and approached the corpse alone. He felt the crowd’s stares and heard their whispers of disgust, but he knew everyone was relieved to get rid of the man.

Reverently Tobit wrapped the body in his own cloak. Then with a grunt, he heaved up the bundle. People scattered wherever he turned, leaving him a choice of exits. He ducked into the nearest lane, Tobias emerged from a side path ahead, and together they cautiously took the shadowed back streets home.

Tobit lugged the corpse into his high-walled courtyard, glad to remove himself from the glare of the nosy neighbor watching from her window. Just inside the gate, he laid the man on the ground. Tobias loped into the house, but since Tobit was defiled, he sat beside the body and ate from the small bundle of food his wife had left there.

When dusk faded toward dark, Tobit carried the corpse to the graveyard that edged the poor section of town. There he buried the man. Then, sweating and weary, he trudged home. He craved his own bed, but since he was defiled, he could go only as far as his courtyard. Inside the gate, he lay down on a blanket his wife had graciously set out for him.

The neighbor’s whine drifted from her window. “Did Tobias learn nothing? He had to run away before, yet here he is, back again, and up to his old habits! Does he not fear hanging? Or worse?”

Tobit sighed, laced his fingers behind his head, and stared at the stars. A scratch and flutter sounded on the wall above. “Sparrows,” he muttered, hoping their noise would not keep him awake all night.

A warm slime plopped into his eyes. “Gah!” he choked, sitting upright. Bird droppings. He rubbed the ooze out with his fists, then with his blanket. The burning sting forced him to squeeze his watering eyes closed. He felt his way to the jar in the corner and splashed water over his eyes until he could open them. The night had darkened. He lay down beside the jar and looked up at the sky. The stars were gone. He looked around. Everything was gone. He couldn’t see.

- to be continued -

© 2012 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Based on The Book of Tobit, circa 200 BCE. Photo courtesy morguefile.

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Postscript: The Ancient Book of Enoch

We’ve almost come to the end of Enoch’s story. I’m going to miss him, but I look forward to opening a new tale, this one about the golden-winged angel Raphael. But what about Enoch, Semjaza, Azazel, the Watchers, and the giants? Here’s what legend tells us.

Enoch: Our aging scribe tours earth, the heavens, and Sheol, escorted by the four archangels, Gabriel, Raphael, Michael, and Uriel (also called Phanuel). They show Enoch “a river of fire . . . mountains of the darkness of winter . . .treasuries of all the winds . . . the corner-stone of the earth . . . the ends of the earth whereon the heaven rests, and the portals of the heaven open.” Enoch continues to see and record visions during his life on earth, and then, one day, he is “raised aloft on the chariots of the spirit.” The Biblical account is much briefer: “Enoch lived 365 years, walking in close fellowship with God. Then one day he disappeared, because God took him” (Genesis 5:23, 24, NLT).

Giants: Enoch records that the giants become evil spirits: “the spirits of the giants afflict, oppress, destroy, attack, do battle, and work destruction on the earth, and cause trouble.”

Watchers: On Enoch’s angel-escorted tours, he learns the names and functions of the Watchers who, after their rebellion, are called satans. Since the word “satan” means “accuser, talebearer, one who brings false charges, opponent,” I envision these fallen angels blaming God, humanity, and each other (not unlike we humans do). Uriel tells Enoch that the rebellious angels are imprisoned in an abyss of fire “till the time when their guilt should be consummated.” But a few lines later, the book says, “their spirits, assuming many different forms, . . . shall lead [people] astray.” It’s unclear whether this refers to the Watchers’ spirits or the evil spirits who were once giants. (The Book of Enoch is a mix of writings by various scribes, gathered over several centuries, so the accounts are often confusing.)

Azazel: Though Azazel was bound “hand and foot,” Enoch later lists him among the satans. In some legends, he is the original Satan. Islamic tales record Azazel as the original fallen angel. As the story goes, when God created Adam, He ordered the angels to worship the man. When Azazel refused, he was cast out of heaven, and his name was changed to Eblis. In the Bible, the name Azazel is connected to the concept of the scapegoat. The Israelite priest chose a goat to symbolically carry the sins of the people. This goat was sent “to the wilderness of Azazel.” A few lines later, it’s repeated as “sent to Azazel” (Leviticus 16:8-10).

Semjaza: In the list of satans, Semjaza is named first. Some legends say that he was punished by being suspended upside down between heaven and earth in the constellation of Orion. 

So we close the ancient Book of Enoch. Join me next week, when we turn to the ancient Book of Tobit and begin the most famous legend about the angel Raphael.

- to be continued -

© 2012 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Based on The Book of Enoch, 220 BCE – 100 CE. Illustration: The Book of Job by William Blake, courtesy Angels by Dover Publications.

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