Tobit 9:1-6: in context

The wedding is underway, but Tobias has unfinished business. He calls his companion, Raphael, still traveling under the name Azarias, and sends him with camels to Rages in Media, to collect the money Tobias's father had left in trust with a man named Gabael, and to bring Gabael to the feast. He explains his hurry: Raguel has made him swear to stay for the whole wedding, but my father is counting the days, and if I am delayed too long he will grieve. Raphael goes, retrieves the sealed bags of money, and returns with Gabael to the feast.

The touching detail is Tobias's thought for his father. In the middle of his own wedding celebration, a joyful time when a young man might easily forget everyone back home, Tobias is thinking about old Tobit counting the days, imagining his blind father's worry growing with each day of delay. He honors the obligation to his host, Raguel, staying the full feast as he swore, and at the same time he cannot enjoy the celebration without arranging to relieve his father's anxiety. So he sends Raphael ahead to keep the promise and shorten the worry. It is a quiet picture of a grown child who does not let his own happiness eclipse his care for an aging parent, who in his best moment is still thinking of the father counting days at home. Honor your father and mother, the commandment says, and here it looks like a bridegroom remembering, even at his wedding, the anxious love waiting for him back home.

In my own good seasons, do I remember the ones at home counting the days, or does my happiness eclipse my care for the people anxiously loving me from a distance?