Context No. 3935 of 4322 · Tobit
Context · Reflection
Tobit 2:1-6: in context
1Now when I had come home again, and my wife Anna was restored to me, and my son Tobias, in the feast of Pentecost, which is the holy feast of the seven weeks, there was a good dinner prepared for me, and I sat down to eat. 2I saw abundance of meat, and I said to my son, “Go and bring whatever poor man you find of our kindred, who is mindful of the Lord. Behold, I wait for you.” 3Then he came, and said, “Father, one of our race is strangled, and has been cast out in the marketplace.” 4Before I had tasted anything, I sprang up, and took him up into a chamber until the sun had set. 5Then I returned, washed myself, ate my bread in heaviness, 6and remembered the prophecy of Amos, as he said, “Your feasts will be turned into mourning, and all your mirth into lamentation.
At the feast of Pentecost, with a good dinner set before him, Tobit sends his son to find a poor kinsman to share the meal, but the son returns with grim news: one of their people has been murdered and left lying in the marketplace. And Tobit, before he has tasted a bite, springs up from his own feast, takes the body away to bury it after sunset, and returns to eat his bread in mourning.
There is something arresting in Tobit's response. He could not sit and enjoy his celebration while a brother lay dishonored and unburied. His compassion interrupted his own comfort; the need of the dead man mattered more to him than his feast. It is easy to insulate our celebrations and comforts from the suffering around us, to feast while others mourn, unnoticed. Tobit would not do it. He let the reality of another's need break into his own enjoyment and move him to costly action. There is a challenge here to a compassion that does not wall itself off from the suffering of others but lets it interrupt even our own good times.
Does my compassion let the real suffering of others interrupt my own comfort and celebration, moving me to act, or do I insulate my good times from the needs around me?