Tobit 3:16–17

Tobit 3:16 — "The prayer of both was heard before the glory of the great God."

The conjunction "both" (Greek: amphοtérōn) is the literary and theological hinge of the entire first movement of the Book of Tobit. The author has carefully constructed chapters 1–3 to present two parallel figures in extremis: Tobit, the righteous man blinded and humiliated in Nineveh (3:1–6), and Sarah, the innocent young woman in Ecbatana whose seven husbands have been killed by the demon Asmodaeus on their wedding nights (3:7–15). Both have prayed for death. The narrator now draws these two distant, unaware sufferers into a single divine hearing. The phrase "before the glory of the great God" (enōpion tēs doxēs tou megalou theou) is strikingly liturgical. In Second Temple Judaism, "glory" (kavod/doxa) evokes the luminous, overwhelming presence of God enthroned — the same glory that filled the Temple (1 Kgs 8:11) and that Ezekiel saw departing and returning (Ezek 1; 43). Prayer, in this framework, is not merely speaking into the air; it ascends to a real divine court where it is "heard" as a legal and personal claim. The passive "was heard" signals divine action already underway — before any human character acts, God has already moved.

Tobit 3:17 — Raphael's fourfold commission

The verse unfolds Raphael's mission with remarkable precision: (1) to heal (iasasthai) them both — the verb embraces both physical and spiritual restoration; (2) to scale away the white films from Tobit's eyes — the medical specificity (leukōmata, a corneal opacity) grounds the miraculous in the bodily; (3) to give Sarah to Tobias as wife — Raphael is here an instrument of Providence in the ordering of a sacred marriage; (4) to bind Asmodaeus — the verb dēsai anticipates the binding of the evil one, a motif that will reverberate throughout biblical eschatology (cf. Rev 20:2).

The narrator adds a crucial legal-theological note: "because it belonged to Tobias that he should inherit her." This invokes the levirate and kinship-redeemer laws of the Torah (cf. Num 27:8–11; Deut 25:5–10; Ruth 3–4). Tobias is Sarah's closest eligible kinsman; divine justice and Mosaic law converge. The marriage is not arbitrary but redemptive — it restores Sarah's honor and continues the righteous lineage of Israel in exile.

The closing sentence — "At that very time, Tobit returned and entered his house, and Sarah came down from her upper chamber" — is one of the most beautiful narrative coincidences in all of Scripture. Both souls, moments after praying for death, unknowingly take the first physical step toward life. Tobit moves toward the house; Sarah descends. Neither knows what has been set in motion in the divine court. The author invites the reader into a privileged divine perspective: we see what neither protagonist can see, and the dramatic irony is charged with theological meaning. God's answer to prayer often begins moving before the person praying has risen from their knees.

Typological and spiritual senses

Raphael — whose name means "God heals" (rapha-El) — is one of only three angels named in the Catholic canon (with Michael and Gabriel). His mission in Tobit is a type of Christ the Physician (Christus Medicus), who heals blindness (John 9), casts out demons (Mark 5), and gives his disciples as a bride to himself (Eph 5:25–32). The simultaneous hearing of two prayers prefigures the Catholic understanding of the communion of prayer — that the Church's intercession is gathered into one before the Father, united in the Spirit (Rom 8:26–27).

Catholic tradition uniquely illuminates this passage along several converging lines.

Angelology and intercession. The Council of Nicaea I (325) and later the Fourth Lateran Council affirm the existence of angels as personal, spiritual creatures who carry out God's providential will. Raphael's mission here is the most elaborately described angelic commission in the Hebrew Scriptures. The Catechism teaches that "the whole life of the Church benefits from the mysterious and powerful help of angels" (CCC 334), and Tobit 3:17 is precisely the kind of narrative that grounds this teaching narratively: angels are not decorative — they carry specific, healing missions. St. Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae (I, q. 113) draws on Tobit to argue that guardian angels act as intermediaries of divine providence.

Efficacious prayer. The simultaneity of the two prayers being heard "as one" before God resonates with the Catholic doctrine of the treasury of merit and the communion of saints, though here in a more fundamental register: God hears the prayers of the righteous even when they cannot hear each other. Pope Benedict XVI, in Deus Caritas Est (§37), notes that prayer is never merely private but is taken up into God's providential will for others. Tobit and Sarah do not know each other; yet their prayers interlock in the divine economy.

Marriage as divine vocation. Raphael's explicit commission to "give Sarah to Tobias" anticipates the Catholic theology of marriage as a vocation ordered by God, not merely a human contract. The Church Fathers, including St. John Chrysostom (Homilies on Marriage), and the Second Vatican Council (Gaudium et Spes §48) affirm that Christian marriage participates in the covenant love of God. The kinship-redeemer motif further foreshadows Christ as the ultimate goel (redeemer-kinsman) who takes humanity as his bride.

Healing of the whole person. The dual healing — eyes and demonic oppression — reflects the Catholic anthropology of the human person as body-soul unity. The Catechism (CCC 362–368) insists that both dimensions of the human person are objects of God's saving care, and the Anointing of the Sick (CCC 1499–1532) continues Raphael's healing mission in the sacramental life of the Church.

Contemporary Catholics often experience prayer in isolation — praying alone, in darkness, wondering whether God hears. Tobit 3:16–17 offers a radical corrective: your prayer, offered in sincerity from your "upper chamber" of suffering, is already being heard alongside prayers you know nothing about, and God is already dispatching an answer before you finish speaking.

Practically, this passage invites three acts of faith. First, trust the delay. Neither Tobit nor Sarah received an immediate visible answer — Raphael's journey and Tobias's took weeks. Unanswered prayer is not unheard prayer. Second, pray for others with confidence. The Catholic practice of intercessory prayer — for the sick, for those suffering spiritual oppression, for those seeking a spouse — is not a pious gesture but a participation in the same divine economy that sent Raphael. Third, notice the small movements. Tobit "entered his house" and Sarah "came down." The first steps toward healing often look mundane. Catholics are invited to discern God's angel-guided providence in the ordinary movements of daily life — a phone call, a chance encounter, a door that opens — as the beginning of answers long prayed for.