Commentaria in Tobiam
The third is added by the Greek, which has, “and I was the king’s buyer,” in Greek agoraste, that is, buyer and steward of all that pertained to the king, whether provisions, or garments, or horses, or arms, or estates, etc.; Tobias was therefore the steward of the royal house, as Joseph was of Pharao, Genesis 41; hence the Hebrew has: He was appointed over the business which Salmanasar had. Tobias was therefore the king’s household manager, which is the first dignity in the royal court, and therefore honoured and of great stipend and gain; from which Tobias became wealthy, that he might succour all needy Hebrews by his liberality.
16. “AND OF THAT WITH WHICH HE HAD BEEN HONOURED (that is, rewarded and enriched) BY THE KING, HAD TEN TALENTS OF SILVER.”—Some, says Serarius, think these ten talents made 3072 French crowns; others six thousand, because they give six hundred crowns to one talent; others, such as Cardan, in his book On His Own Books, give five hundred ducats to one talent, whence ten talents would make five thousand ducats. For nothing certain can be assigned here, since we do not know whether this talent was Babylonian, Persian or Hebrew; but it is certain that it was a huge sum of several thousand gold pieces; whence the wealth of Tobias is clear, as well as his charity and liberality toward Gabelus and the other needy Hebrews.
17. “AND WHEN, IN THE GREAT MULTITUDE OF HIS KINDRED (his nation), HE SAW GABELUS IN WANT, WHO WAS OF HIS TRIBE (Nephthali), UPON HIS NOTE OF HAND (prudently, that he might be secured about the debt) HE GAVE HIM THE AFORESAID WEIGHT OF SILVER.”—For “gave,” the Greek has parethemen, that is, deposited, as though this money were a deposit given to Gabelus to keep until Tobias should ask it back and distribute it to needy Jews living in Rages and Media; yet in such a way that he gave Gabelus power to use it in his own urgent need: wherefore this deposit was at once a loan; but Tobias exacted no interest on the loan, indeed asked nothing for profit ceasing or loss arising, says St. Ambrose, book On Tobias, chapter 24: “He sought no pledge, he demanded no surety.” And chapter 3: “Consulting honour rather than necessity, he had lent to his neighbour, to whom his own means were lacking, a sustenance, which in the whole time of his life, in so great poverty, he did not ask back. When he saw himself weary, as with a deposit of old age, he hinted it to his son: not so much desiring to reclaim the loan as anxious lest he defraud his heir.” See here the charity and liberality of Tobias.
18. “BUT AFTER A LONG TIME, SALMANASAR THE KING BEING DEAD, WHEN SENNACHERIB HIS SON REIGNED IN HIS PLACE, AND HAD A HATRED FOR THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL,”—from the beginning of his reign, but most of all after the slaughter of 185 thousand by the Angel in Judea, in the 14th year of Ezechias king of Juda.
19. “TOBIAS DAILY WENT THROUGH ALL HIS KINDRED, AND COMFORTED THEM, AND DISTRIBUTED TO EVERY ONE AS HE WAS ABLE, OUT OF HIS GOODS.”
20. “HE FED THE HUNGRY, AND GAVE CLOTHES TO THE NAKED, AND WAS CAREFUL TO BURY THE DEAD AND THEM THAT WERE SLAIN.”—Behold here the works of piety and mercy, both corporal and spiritual, in which Tobias piously and holily spent his wealth and strength, on account of which he gained the hope, and almost the reality, of martyrdom and its crown; as St. Januarius, St. Marius and Martha with their sons, and many others who visited, fed and buried the bodies of martyrs, obtained the crown of martyrdom.
An emulator of Tobias was St. Malachy, bishop of Ireland, of whom St. Bernard writes thus in his Life, after the beginning: “Finally he had the greatest care in burying the dead poor, because this savoured to him no less of humility than of humanity. Nor was there wanting to our new Tobias a temptation revived from a woman, indeed from the serpent by a woman.
His sister, shrinking from the unworthiness (as it seemed to her) of the office, said: What are you doing, madman? Let the dead bury their dead. And she daily kept urging this reproach on him; but the foolish woman was answered according to her folly. Wretched woman, you hold the voice of chaste speech but know not its virtue. Thus the ministry to which he had come under compulsion he held devoutly and exercised untiringly.”
22. “BUT WHEN IT WAS TOLD THE KING (Sennacherib), HE COMMANDED HIM TO BE SLAIN, AND TOOK AWAY ALL HIS SUBSTANCE.”—Tobias therefore willingly accepted the plunder of all his goods, flight and exile, and even the sentence of death, for his faith and charity; he was thus a confessor, and a martyr in desire. Hear St. Ambrose, book On Tobias, chapter 10: “For the sake of the virtues he practised, in which he was endowed, he underwent the hardship of captivity, which he bore humbly and patiently, grieving more at the common injury than the private; nor did he lament that the support of his virtues profited him nothing, but rather judged that disgrace smaller than the price of his sins.”
Piously and wisely says St. Bernard in his Sentences: “Martyrdom without blood is threefold: frugality in plenty, which David and Job had; generosity in poverty, which Tobias exercised, and the widow in the Gospel; chastity in youth, which Joseph used in Egypt.”
23. “BUT TOBIAS FLEEING WITH HIS SON AND HIS WIFE, LAY CONCEALED, NAKED,”—The Hebrew has that Tobias lay hidden for nineteen days.
24. “BUT AFTER FORTY-FIVE DAYS (from the slaughter received and the flight from Judea) HIS OWN SONS MURDERED THE KING.”—See what was said on 4 Kings 19:37.
25. “AND TOBIAS RETURNED TO HIS HOUSE, AND ALL HIS SUBSTANCE (of wealth) WAS RESTORED TO HIM.”—That is, what still remained. For that much had been consumed, plundered, carried off and scattered by the king’s officials, guards and soldiers is clear from this, that Anna, Tobias’s wife, earned a living by weaving, as is said in chapter 2:19. Hence St. Ambrose, chapter 1: “Scarcely at last,” he says, “his patrimony plundered, needy and an exile, could he be restored to his own through a friend.” Note there “through a friend”; for the Hebrew and Greek add that Tobias was restored to his goods through Achiacharus, or Akakarus, his nephew, who was in great favour and honour with Asarhaddon (whom the Greek calls Sarchedon), son and successor of Sennacherib. For Achiacharus (whom our text, chapter 11, verse 20, calls Achior) was the son of Anael, who was Tobias’s brother, whom Asarhaddon appointed first as his cupbearer; secondly, keeper of the royal ring, that as a sealbearer he might seal the royal letters, such as Mardochai was with Assuerus, Esther chapter 3; thirdly, second to himself in the whole empire of the Assyrians, or his vicar, as the Hebrew and Greek have; fourthly, governor, that is, steward; fifthly, set over all accounts, or Rationalis; fifth, as the Greek has …
Tobias, wearied from burying the dead and falling asleep, is blinded by the dung of swallows; hence, assailed with reproaches by his wife and friends, he bears all with wonderful patience, like another Job.