Tobit 12:1–5

Tobit 12:1 — Tobit Takes the Initiative It is the elder Tobit who calls his son Tobias and urges that their companion be paid — and not merely paid, but paid more than agreed. This is striking: Tobit was blind throughout the journey and received the companion's services at one remove. Yet he is the one to prompt generosity. The phrase "it is no harm to me" (v. 2) that Tobias will echo suggests the culture assumed such generosity might be considered imprudent. Tobit's initiative reflects the Deuteronomic teaching that a hired laborer must be paid promptly and generously (Deut 24:15), but it goes beyond mere obligation to gladness.

Tobit 12:2 — Tobias's Spontaneous Liberality Tobias's response surpasses what his father asked. He does not merely agree to "give more"; he volunteers half of everything recovered — an extraordinary sum, given that the original mission was to retrieve ten talents of silver (Tob 9:5). The Greek word used in the Septuagint for "harm" (βλάβη, blabē) carries connotations of loss or damage: Tobias reassures his father that giving so lavishly will not damage them. This is the language of a man who has interiorly grasped that what he possesses came not from his own effort alone.

Tobit 12:3 — The Threefold Accounting of Grace Tobias enumerates three gifts Raphael had given: (1) safe guidance to and from his father; (2) the healing of his wife Sarah from demonic affliction; and (3) the recovery of the silver. The order is significant. Safety of person comes first, then healing of the beloved, then material recovery — a natural hierarchy of goods from most to least essential. This triple accounting reflects what Catholic tradition calls the ordo caritatis, the right ordering of love, in which persons take precedence over things. Tobias's recitation is also implicitly a prayer of thanksgiving: he is narrating the mercies of God, even while speaking to a human figure he does not yet know to be an angel.

Tobit 12:4 — The Father Ratifies the Offering "It is due to him" — Tobit's brief declaration is weighty. The word due (Greek: ἄξιος, axios) implies not mere courtesy but rightful desert. Tobit recognizes that no wage they can offer will actually be proportionate to what was done, yet he insists on the attempt. This mirrors the logic of the Eucharist: we offer back to God what we cannot adequately repay, and the offering itself becomes the occasion for greater grace.

Tobit 12:5 — The Call to the Angel The phrase "he called the angel" is laden with dramatic irony: neither Tobit nor Tobias yet knows he is an angel. They call him as a man. God's messengers often go unrecognized — a motif running from Mamre (Gen 18) through Emmaus (Luke 24). The offer of "half of all" formally echoes Zacchaeus's spontaneous declaration in Luke 19:8. In both cases, a dramatic transformation of heart expresses itself in radical, voluntary redistribution of goods. Tobit and Tobias do not give from surplus; they give from the substance of what was recovered.

Catholic tradition reads the figure of Raphael in Tobit as one of the richest Old Testament types of angelic ministry and, by extension, of the priestly and sacramental mediation that characterizes the Church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that "from its beginning until death, human life is surrounded by [angels'] watchful care and intercession" (CCC 336). Raphael — whose name means "God heals" — is the supreme Old Testament exemplar of this truth.

The gesture of offering wages to Raphael illuminates the Catholic doctrine of ex opere operantis alongside ex opere operato: while grace is objectively given, the disposition of the recipient and the community matters. Tobit and Tobias's eagerness to give generously signifies souls properly ordered toward gratitude, which is itself a form of worship.

St. Augustine, in De Civitate Dei (Book XV), reflects on how angels interact with human history as instruments of divine Providence without diminishing divine agency. Tobit's situation embodies this perfectly: Raphael acted, but God healed.

Pope Benedict XVI, in Deus Caritas Est (§§18–19), argues that authentic love always seeks to give more than is strictly required — agape overflows the bounds of contract. Tobit's instruction to give more than agreed is precisely this movement from eros (contractual exchange) to agape (gratuitous gift).

The Council of Trent, in its Decree on Justification, taught that good works flowing from grace are genuinely meritorious — not as earning God's favor in a mercantile sense, but as the flower of charity. The generosity of Tobit and Tobias is a lived parable of this: they act freely, from love, and it is precisely this freedom that makes their offering worthy.

In an economy that reduces all relationships to transactions and measures worth by productivity and remuneration, Tobit 12:1–5 is a countercultural manifesto. Contemporary Catholics are challenged here on several fronts. First, do we promptly and generously acknowledge those who have served us — the nurse, the teacher, the priest, the friend who accompanied us through illness? The Church's social teaching, rooted in the dignity of the human person (CCC 1700), demands not just fair wages but honor.

Second, Tobias's offer of half of everything invites an examination of our relationship to material goods. He had just retrieved a family fortune; he immediately offered half away. The USCCB's pastoral letters on economic life consistently call Catholics beyond a "tipping point" mentality — gratitude that costs us nothing — toward proportional, sacrificial giving.

Third, and most practically: we often receive great gifts — healing, reconciliation, safe passage through darkness — and we move on without pausing to name the grace. Tobit calls a family meeting specifically to address this. A concrete application: at the end of a significant life-season, deliberately name who God used to help you, and find a tangible way to honor them.