Context No. 4084 of 4322 · Tobit

Tobit 10:7-12: in context

7And she said to him, “Hold your peace. Don’t deceive me. My child has perished.” And she went out every day into the way by which they went, and ate no bread in the day-time, and didn’t stop bewailing her son Tobias for whole nights, until the fourteen days of the wedding feast were expired, which Raguel had sworn that he should spend there. Then Tobias said to Raguel, “Send me away, for my father and my mother look no more to see me.” 8But his father-in-law said to him, “Stay with me, and I will send to your father, and they will declare to him how things go with you.” 9Tobias said, “No. Send me away to my father.” 10Raguel arose, and gave him Sarah his wife, and half his goods, servants and cattle and money; 11and he blessed them, and sent them away, saying, “The God of heaven will prosper you, my children, before I die.” 12And he said to his daughter, “Honor your father-in-law and your mother-in-law. They are now your parents. Let me hear a good report of you.” Then he kissed her. Edna said to Tobias, “May the Lord of heaven restore you, dear brother, and grant to me that I may see your children of my daughter Sarah, that I may rejoice before the Lord. Behold, I commit my daughter to you in special trust. Don’t cause her grief.

As Tobias and his new wife Sarah prepare to leave her parents' home, the passage is full of tender family love. Sarah's mother grieves over her daughter's departure, and her father Raguel sends them off with a blessing and gives them half of all he owns. And to his daughter he gives a parting counsel worth pondering: honor your father-in-law and mother-in-law; they are now your parents.

And to Tobias, Sarah's mother gives a charge full of a parent's love: do not cause her grief. There is warmth and wisdom in these parting words. As a new couple begins their life together, the elders do not just send them off, but bless them and give counsel about how to live: to honor the family they are joining, and to cherish one another, doing nothing to grieve the other. The charge do not cause her grief captures a whole way of loving in marriage, to guard the heart of the one entrusted to us, to take care not to wound them, to cherish rather than grieve. And the call to honor the family we marry into reminds us that love binds not just two people but families together.

Do I cherish those closest to me, especially a spouse, taking care not to grieve them but to guard their heart, and do I honor the wider family that love has bound me to?

Sources

Tobit 10:12: "Honor your father-in-law and your mother-in-law. They are now your parents... Behold, I commit my daughter to you in special trust. Don't cause her grief."
Tobit 10:11: "He blessed them, and sent them away, saying, The God of heaven will prosper you, my children, before I die."
Ephesians 5:28-29: "Husbands should love their own wives as their own bodies... For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it."