Sarah Daughter of Reuel Blessed Into a New Life

The Eighth Grave

He had buried seven sons-in-law. He had dug the graves himself, at night, before anyone could see, filling them in again the same night when the young man's body was found. Seven times. He had given his daughter in marriage seven times, and seven times the husband had died before the wedding was a marriage in any real sense, and he had filled in seven graves in the dark and prayed through seven mornings that the eighth match would never come because he could not do it again.

But the eighth match came. A young man from Nineveh named Tobias arrived at his gate with a companion who called himself Azariah, and Tobias said that he was Tobit's son, from the line of Naphtali, and that he wanted to marry Sarah. Reuel went outside that night and dug an eighth grave. He dug it before the wedding because grief had made him practical. He dug it because he was honest about what he expected.

What He Did Anyway

He dug the grave and then he went inside and gave his daughter to the young man anyway. He wrote the marriage contract himself, sealed it, and called the witnesses. He gave Sarah to Tobias and blessed them both. He said: the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob be with you, and may he join you together and fill your lives with his goodness. And the guests said amen.

Sarah had not been consulted about any of the seven previous marriages. The Book of Tobit does not record her opinion of Tobias before the wedding. What it records is that on the wedding night Tobias burned the fish's heart and liver in the incense pan, and the demon Asmodeus smelled the smoke and fled to Egypt, and Raphael pursued him there and bound him, and Tobias and Sarah prayed together before they slept, and in the morning they were both alive.

The Father Who Rose Before Dawn

Reuel rose before dawn and went to dig again. He found the grave as he had left it: empty, waiting, unnecessary. He sent his servants to fill it in. He came back into the house and told his wife Edna: God has had mercy on us. He went in to Tobias and said: I will not hide from you that I have done this night, that I rose and dug a grave. The Lord has had mercy and I will fill it with earth again.

He had dug eight graves for this daughter. He had stood at seven of them. The eighth one he filled in while his daughter's new husband ate breakfast in the house. This is what faith looks like in a man who has had seven reasons not to believe anything good will happen: he digs the grave anyway, and he fills it in when he is wrong.

The Blessing at the Departure

When the fourteen days of the wedding feast were finished, and Tobias asked to go home to his father, Reuel gave Sarah to him with half of all that he possessed: servants, cattle, money, household goods. He blessed them again at the gate. He said to Sarah: honor your father and your mother-in-law. They are now your parents. Go in peace. I hope to hear only good things of you for the rest of my days. He kissed her and wept. He told Edna to take good care of her son-in-law Tobias and that he hoped to see their children before he died.

Every blessing contains a farewell inside it. He had said goodbye to seven sons-in-law the same morning he buried them. He was saying goodbye to his only daughter, the one he had prayed would outlive him, sending her north to a city he would probably never visit, to a blind man's house in the Assyrian capital, to a life he could not see and could only bless.