Catholic Commentary
Raphael Recovers the Money and Returns for the Wedding Feast
5So Raphael went on his way, and lodged with Gabael, and gave him the handwriting; so he brought forth the bags with their seals, and gave them to him.6Then they rose up early in the morning together, and came to the wedding feast. Tobias blessed his wife.
Tobit 9:5–6 describes the angel Raphael successfully retrieving ten talents of silver from Gabael in Rages using a sealed promissory note, then returning early in the morning to Tobias's wedding feast. At the feast, Tobias formally blesses his wife, publicly sanctifying their marriage covenant and establishing his role as head of the household.
Providence is rarely miraculous—it works through sealed documents, faithful errand runners, and spouses who bless each other at ordinary feasts.
Typological and Spiritual Senses
Raphael's recovery of sealed treasure and return to the feast carries typological weight pointing toward the Church's sacramental economy. The chirographum — the bond, the written document — recalls the Pauline image of sin as a "bond" (Col 2:14), the written record of debt that Christ cancels on the Cross. Raphael, whose name means "God heals" (from rapha, to heal), brings back what was bound in trust and delivers it at the moment of new life beginning. The Church Fathers, particularly Origen in his Homilies on Numbers, observed that angels are instruments by which God's providential designs are executed in time without compromising human freedom or dignity. Here, Tobias's marriage — itself a type of Christ's union with the Church (cf. Eph 5:25–32) — is consummated, celebrated, and blessed in a feast to which even the recovered silver contributes, as it will fund the young couple's life together.
Catholic tradition brings several distinct lenses to bear on these verses.
The Ministry of Angels: The Catechism teaches that "from its beginning until death, human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession" (CCC 336). Raphael's mission is not incidental decoration to the narrative; it is the Book of Tobit's central catechesis on angelology. St. Thomas Aquinas, in the Summa Theologiae (I, q. 113), argues that angels are not only sent for extraordinary interventions but serve as guardians in the ordinary, practical affairs of righteous souls — which is precisely what we see here: a financial errand, a journey at dawn, an arrival at a feast.
The Sanctity of Contracts and Stewardship: Catholic Social Teaching, rooted in the natural law tradition, consistently affirms the binding character of just agreements. Gabael's faithful stewardship of the sealed bags across years of absence models the virtue of fidelitas — fidelity in the small things — which Christ himself commends in the parable of the talents (Mt 25:21). The sealed document functions almost sacramentally: it is an outward, visible sign of an inward commitment honored before God.
The Nuptial Blessing: The blessing Tobias bestows on Sara has a direct liturgical descendant in the Catholic Rite of Marriage, where the nuptial blessing over the bride (and now both spouses in the revised rite) is a formal, ecclesial act. The Council of Trent (Session 24) elevated matrimony to the full dignity of a sacrament, and the Catechism teaches that "the matrimonial covenant... is ordered to the good of the spouses and to the procreation and education of offspring" (CCC 1601). Tobias's blessing enacts this covenant publicly, before the gathered community.
For contemporary Catholics, these two verses offer a quietly radical challenge: to see the hand of Providence in the prosaic. Raphael travels, presents a document, retrieves sealed bags, and arrives at a party — nothing miraculous, nothing dramatic. Yet this is the modus operandi of divine grace in most of our lives: not parted seas, but faithful errands completed, old debts honored, ordinary mornings consecrated by early rising and purposeful action.
For married Catholics or those preparing for marriage, Tobias's blessing of Sara is a summons to recover the explicitly priestly dimension of spousal love. Too often, Catholic couples treat the wedding day as the apex and subsequent years as plateau or decline. But the blessing Tobias offers at the feast — after the night of prayer, after the crisis, after the practical affairs are resolved — suggests that blessing one's spouse is not a one-time liturgical event but a habitual, daily vocation. Spouses are called to bless each other concretely: through prayer together, through words of genuine affirmation, and through the fidelity that, like Gabael's sealed bags, holds what was entrusted intact across the years.
Commentary
Tobit 9:5 — Raphael's Faithful Errand
Verse 5 closes the practical loop opened in Tobit 1:14, where Tobit had deposited ten talents of silver with Gabael of Rages in Media — a detail introduced early in the narrative as a test of providential memory, for no human character forgets it, yet none can retrieve it unaided. Raphael (traveling under the name Azariah, cf. Tob 5:13) now executes his commission with striking efficiency: he travels to Rages, presents the "handwriting" (chirographum in the Vulgate — a legally binding promissory note or bond), and receives the sealed bags of silver. The emphasis on the sealed bags and the handwriting is significant. The seals confirm that neither the document nor the contents had been tampered with; Gabael had been a man of his word, and the sacred institution of financial trust — rooted in the Torah's insistence on honest weights and measures (Lev 19:35–36) — had been honored across decades and across countries.
The angel's role here is not merely functional. Raphael does not draw attention to himself; he presents the written instrument and receives what belongs to Tobit's family. This reflects a deep scriptural motif: the malak, the divine messenger, is always agent rather than principal. He acts in persona Dei, on behalf of the One who sent him, and his action restores what was lost — money, yes, but also honor, security, and the future inheritance of a family nearly extinguished by suffering.
Tobit 9:6 — The Return and the Blessing
"They rose up early in the morning together" — the language of early rising (de mane) carries biblical resonance. Rising early denotes zeal, eagerness, and readiness; Abraham rises early to obey God (Gen 22:3); the women rise early to find the empty tomb (Mk 16:2). Raphael and Gabael arrive together at the wedding feast, bringing not only money but witness and solidarity. The community gathered around Tobias and Sara is now complete.
The verse's final clause — "Tobias blessed his wife" — is lapidary but luminous. The Vulgate (benedixit uxori suae) and Greek traditions alike record this blessing as a deliberate, solemn act. Within the context of Tobit 8, where the couple had already prayed together on their wedding night (Tob 8:5–8), this blessing at the feast signals a public dimension to what began as a private covenant before God. The husband's blessing of the wife echoes the priestly and patriarchal blessings of the Old Testament and anticipates the nuptial blessing of the Christian liturgical tradition. Tobias is not merely a groom at a party; he is a in the making, exercising a quasi-priestly role within the domestic sanctuary of his new marriage.