Tobit 4:14–17

Tobit 4:14 — Prompt wages and the fear of the Lord Tobit opens with a command that is simultaneously economic, legal, and theological: do not hold back a worker's wages even for a single night. The Greek word underlying "out of hand" (εἰς χεῖράς, eis cheiras) conveys immediacy — into his hands, now. This is not merely good manners but a matter of justice (dikaiosynē): the laborer's wage is his very means of survival. Tobit's reasoning is explicitly theocentric — "if you serve God, you will be rewarded" — grounding social ethics in the covenant relationship between Israel and the Lord. The second half of the verse broadens the lens: "take heed to yourself in all your works, and be discreet in all your behavior." The Greek eumenēs (prudent, gracious) suggests that moral vigilance is not merely rule-following but a cultivated character. Tobias is being formed, not just instructed.

Tobit 4:15 — The Golden Rule in negative form and the vice of drunkenness "What you yourself hate, do to no man" is one of the earliest extant formulations of what Christians call the Golden Rule, here stated in its negative register. Tobit utters it as a self-evident principle of natural law: one's own aversion to harm is itself the measure of what must never be inflicted on another. Scholars note this formulation predates its positive articulation in Jesus's Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:12), and its placement here reveals that natural moral intuition is woven into Israel's wisdom tradition. The warning against drunkenness is practically specific: Tobit says it must not "go with you on your way," implying that intemperance is not just a domestic vice but one that corrupts one's entire journey through life — a metaphor that resonates with the literal journey Tobias is about to undertake.

Tobit 4:16 — Almsgiving as the concrete form of love The instruction to give bread to the hungry and garments to the naked places almsgiving in the classic prophetic tradition (cf. Isaiah 58:7). Three imperatives accumulate: share food, share clothing, give alms from abundance. The qualifier "from all your abundance" is deliberate — it checks the temptation to compartmentalize charity as separate from one's ordinary wealth. The final injunction — "don't let your eye be envious when you give alms" — addresses the interior attitude. In Semitic idiom the "evil eye" (βασκανία) denotes a grudging, resentful spirit. Tobit demands not merely the act of giving but a heart freed from covetousness: liberality without resentment is the standard.

Tobit 4:17 — Alms for the dead and the limits of charity "Pour out your bread on the burial of the just" echoes one of Tobit's own defining acts (1:17–18), where he risked his life to bury the dead during the Assyrian persecution. Funerary meals were a recognized form of Jewish charity for mourning families. This verse honors the dead as recipients of love while signaling that the community of charity has moral contours: "give nothing to sinners." This latter injunction, puzzling to modern ears, does not encourage callousness toward all who sin (for the text has just commanded universal bread-sharing), but reflects a covenantal wisdom: material support extended specifically to assist in further wickedness — or as a form of complicity — is not charity. The just dead receive honor; the living neighbor receives bread. The distinction is between solidarity and enablement.

The Catholic tradition reads these verses as a concentrated expression of what the Catechism calls the "corporal works of mercy" (CCC 2447), which include feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and burying the dead — all commanded here explicitly. St. Ambrose of Milan, in De Officiis (I.11), taught that justice and beneficence together constitute the whole of moral virtue, precisely because justice orders our dealings with others while beneficence (almsgiving) perfects those dealings in love. Tobit 4:15 anticipates the positive Golden Rule of Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:31, which the Catechism calls "one of the most basic expressions of the moral law" (CCC 1789), rooted not in arbitrary command but in the natural human understanding of dignity.

The prompt payment of wages receives extraordinary emphasis in Catholic Social Teaching. Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum (§34) and Pope Francis in Laudato Si' (§128) both invoke the laborer's right to a just and timely wage as a fundamental matter of justice — not charity. The Church Fathers consistently treated unpaid wages as a form of theft: St. Basil the Great (Homily on the Rich) thundered that "the bread you store belongs to the hungry; the garment in your closet to the naked." James 5:4, echoing Tobit directly, warns that withheld wages "cry out" before the Lord of Hosts.

The verse on burying the dead has Christological resonance: the Church teaches that care for the human body — even in death — honors the dignity of persons created in God's image and destined for resurrection (CCC 2300). Tobit's heroic burial of the dead is one of the Old Testament types for the Church's ministry of funerary rites.

These verses challenge contemporary Catholics at precise, uncomfortable points. The command not to withhold wages speaks directly to employers, contractors, and anyone who delays payment to freelancers, domestic workers, or laborers — practices that are economically common and morally corrosive. Tobit's bluntness strips away the euphemisms: delay is injustice. The negative Golden Rule of verse 15 is a useful daily examination of conscience: before acting, ask not "is this technically permitted?" but "would I want this done to me?" The warning against drunkenness is newly urgent in a culture where alcohol and substance use are normalized as stress management. Verse 16's demand that the eye not be envious when giving cuts against the modern tendency to give ostentatiously or resentfully — to post the donation, to begrudge the amount. Finally, the command to honor the dead by providing a funeral meal reminds Catholics that accompanying grieving families — bringing food, sitting with mourners — is not optional sentimentality but a spiritual work rooted in Scripture. These are not aspirational ideals; they are specific, achievable acts of justice expected of every disciple.