Tobit Chapter 2 Summary - Key Points & Themes

Read Tobit Chapter 2 Summary

At the feast of Pentecost, Tobit sends his son Tobias to bring a poor man to share his dinner, but Tobias comes back with news of an Israelite strangled and left in the marketplace. Tobit leaves his meal, hides the body until sunset and buries it, remembering Amos's word that feasts would be turned into mourning, while his neighbours mock him for risking death again. Sleeping by his courtyard wall that night, he is blinded by sparrow droppings that no physician can cure; when his wife Anna, now working for wages, brings home a kid, he accuses her of stealing it, and she retorts: 'Where are thine alms and thy righteous deeds?'

Characters in This Chapter

Tobit

Devout exile in Nineveh who buries the dead, is blinded and healed

Tobias

His son, who travels to Media, marries Sara and heals his father

Raphael

Angel sent by God, disguised as Azarias, who guides Tobias and binds the demon

Anna

The Prophetess Who Proclaimed Redemption

Amos

Shepherd Prophet of Justice

Places in This Chapter

Nineveh

Assyrian capital where Tobit lives in exile, buries the dead and is blinded; his last words announce its fall

Tigris River

River where Tobias, guided by the angel, catches the fish whose heart, liver and gall will heal

Jerusalem

City where young Tobit went up with his tithes, and whose rebuilding in glory his final hymn foresees

Ecbatana

City of Raguel in Media, where Tobias marries Sara and the demon is driven out

Position in Book

Tobit's Trials in NinevehChapters 1-2

Tobit stays faithful in exile, feeds the hungry and buries the dead, loses his goods under Sennacherib and is then blinded.

Two Prayers HeardChapters 3

A Father's CounselChapters 4

The Journey with the AngelChapters 5-6

Marriage and DeliveranceChapters 7-9

Return and HealingChapters 10-11

The Angel RevealedChapters 12

Tobit's Hymn and Last WordsChapters 13-14