Tobit 6:6–8

Tobit 6:6 — Tobiah's Question Tobiah addresses the angel as "Brother Azarias," the human name under which Raphael travels incognito (cf. Tob 5:12–13). His question is practical and curious: he has just caught and gutted an enormous fish at Raphael's direction (Tob 6:2–5) and has been told to keep the heart, liver, and bile. Now, camped for the night, the young man wonders what possible use these organs could serve. The question is innocent and childlike, a mark of the narrative's wisdom-literature register — the teachable youth receiving instruction from a guide who knows far more than he reveals. The Deuterocanonical books frequently deploy this pattern: a human character asks a sincere question, and the answer unlocks a layer of providential meaning hidden from the questioner. Tobiah does not yet know that his future wife Sara is tormented by a demon, nor that his father waits at home in darkness.

Tobit 6:7 — The Heart and Liver against Demonic Affliction Raphael's answer moves from the natural to the supernatural. The burning of the heart and liver produces a smoke — the Greek LXX uses ὀσμή (odor/fragrance) — that repels "a demon or an evil spirit." The distinction between daimonion and pneuma ponēron may reflect a nuanced ancient taxonomy of malevolent forces, though Catholic tradition does not require a precise technical distinction here. The key theological point is agency: it is not the fish organs themselves that possess intrinsic apotropaic power in some magical sense. Rather, God — through his angelic messenger — appoints these natural means as instruments of divine action. This is a critical distinction from pagan magic, which claims to coerce supernatural forces through technique. Here the power belongs wholly to God, with natural creation serving as sacramental sign and instrument of His will. The Fathers were attentive to this: Origen (Homilies on Numbers 27) observes that angels are given charge over remedies suited to the conditions of the fallen world, and that God accommodates his healing will to embodied human experience. The episode anticipates the cure of Sara: Tobiah will burn these very organs in the bridal chamber (Tob 8:2–3), and the demon Asmodeus will flee to Egypt, where Raphael binds him.

Tobit 6:8 — The Bile and the Healing of Blindness The bile — χολή in Greek, a bitter fluid — is prescribed as an ointment for "white films" (λευκώματα, leukōmata) covering the eyes, a condition matching Tobit's cataracts (Tob 2:10). This is the second key that Raphael places in Tobiah's hands: one for his future wife's deliverance, one for his father's restoration. At the literal level, ancient medicine did use bile-based preparations, and the Septuagint text reflects Hellenistic medical vocabulary. But the deeper logic is typological: the instrument of healing is something ordinarily bitter and seemingly useless — bile — transformed by God's providential appointment into a source of light and sight. This bitterness-to-sight movement will echo loudly in patristic readings as a figure of salvation through suffering.

Catholic tradition reads this passage through several interlocking lenses.

Angels as Ministers of Providence. The Catechism teaches that angels are "servants and messengers of God" whose whole being is at the service of the divine plan of salvation (CCC §329–331). Raphael's disclosure here is not a magical tutorial but an act of angelic ministry: he reveals what God has appointed so that Tobiah may cooperate freely with grace. St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae I, q. 113) explains that guardian angels enlighten human intellects — precisely what Raphael does by answering Tobiah's question and directing his understanding toward future events he cannot yet see.

Sacramentality of Creation. The use of material means — fish organs, smoke, ointment — to effect spiritual and physical healing prefigures the Catholic sacramental principle articulated in the Catechism: "God communicates himself to man gradually and in stages" through visible, tangible signs (CCC §1145–1147). Creation is not merely the backdrop of salvation but its very instrument. Pope Francis echoes this in Laudato Si' (§84–85): material things are charged with relational and spiritual significance within God's providential order.

Exorcism and the Church's Ministry. Verse 7 stands as an Old Testament witness to what the Church has always practiced: the expulsion of demonic influence through divinely appointed rites. The distinction between God's power and mere technique is foundational to the Church's approach to exorcism (Rite of Exorcism, 1998 revision, Introduction §6). Creation serves grace; grace is never subordinated to creation.

The Healing of Blindness as Eschatological Sign. The cure of Tobit's blindness (prefigured in verse 8) is read by St. Jerome and the Latin tradition as a type of spiritual illumination — the restoration of sight to a people who have walked in darkness, anticipating Isaiah 35:5 and ultimately the healing miracles of Christ.

Contemporary Catholics navigating a culture saturated with spiritualism, occultism, and New Age healing practices will find this passage remarkably instructive. The key distinction Raphael models is one the Church constantly draws: healing power belongs to God alone, and material means — whether sacramentals, oil, water, or the smoke of incense — are effective only because God appoints and blesses them, not because of any intrinsic or manipulable force they contain. This is why Catholics may confidently use blessed oil, prayer, and sacramentals in times of illness or spiritual affliction without reducing faith to superstition.

Practically, this passage invites Catholics to see in the ordinary materials of life — even bitter, unglamorous things like bile — the hidden instruments of divine healing. This asks a specific act of faith: trusting that God can work through circumstances and means that seem unlikely or even repugnant. When facing illness, demonic oppression, or spiritual blindness in oneself or loved ones, the Catholic response is not passivity but active, trusting cooperation with God's appointed means: prayer, the sacraments, the ministry of the Church, and the intercession of the angels.