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Tobit Married Hannah and She Kept Him Alive Through the Exile

Tobit's wife Hannah kept the household alive in Nineveh by weaving curtains for wages. She also told him the hardest truth of his life.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. What the Text Does Not Say About the Wedding
  2. The Wife Who Wove to Keep the Household Alive
  3. What She Said Back
  4. The Full Weight of the Years

What the Text Does Not Say About the Wedding

The Book of Tobit does not describe how Tobit came to marry Hannah. He notes it in a single sentence: when I grew up, I took a wife of my own family. Her name was Hannah. She gave me a son. Then the narrative moves on to the exile in Nineveh and the trouble that followed. The wedding, the courtship, the years before the disaster, all of that is gone. What remains is Hannah in the middle of the story, and the story does not flatter her husband's treatment of her.

She is not a minor character. She is the one who kept the household alive.

The Wife Who Wove to Keep the Household Alive

When Tobit lost his sight, he lost his position at court and his income with it. The savings he had deposited with a man named Gabael in Media were out of reach because he could no longer travel. Hannah took in weaving. She wove curtains for women in Nineveh and collected wages. While Tobit sat in the darkness, while he prayed and waited and directed his son Tobias in the obligations of almsgiving and burial, Hannah went to work. She was the household's economy. She was the reason they had food.

One day her employer gave her a kid goat as a bonus payment, in addition to her wages. She brought it home. The kid cried in the house. Tobit, sitting in his blindness, heard the sound and accused her immediately of theft. He told her to bring it back to its owners. He kept pressing: go and restore it. She told him it was a gift for her work. He did not believe her.

What She Said Back

Hannah's response is one of the most unguarded speeches in all of ancient Jewish literature. She said: where are your charities? Where are your righteous acts? Behold, all is known of you. She named what the neighborhood already knew: that Tobit's famous righteousness, all the almsgiving and burying and fasting, had not protected him from blindness, exile, poverty, and dependence on his wife's labor. His piety was publicly known. Its outcomes were publicly known. She was the one who had watched those outcomes from inside the marriage, every day, and she was finished being patient about it.

It is a brutal thing to say to a blind man. It is also true. The text does not side against her.

The Full Weight of the Years

Hannah had been carrying the household since Tobit lost his sight. She had been carrying it without complaint through the years of the death sentence that Sennacherib issued against Tobit for burying Israelite bodies, through the year Tobit slept against the wall and the sparrows blinded him, through all the subsequent years of darkness and prayer and waiting. She had woven and collected wages and said nothing that survives in the text until the moment he accused her of stealing a goat.

That moment released everything. Not just anger about the goat, but grief about the years. Not just grief about the years, but the specific grief of being the person who kept a righteous man alive while the world only saw his righteousness. His prayers reached heaven. Her wages kept them fed. Both things were true, and only one of them was visible to anyone outside the house.

TobitHannahNinevehExileMarriageWomenFaithfulness
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From the tradition

Sources

2 sources

The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Book of Tobit 1:4Book of Tobit

His story, preserved in the Book of Tobit, is a wild ride through exile, faith, and family. It's a reminder that even in the darkest times, sticking to your values can lead to unexpected blessings.

Tobit begins his tale with a humble introduction. He tells us, "And when I grew up, I took a wife of my family, whose name was Hannah, and she bare me a son, and I called his name Tobiyyah." Simple enough. A man, a wife, a son. But this is just the beginning.

Soon after, life takes a dramatic turn. Tobit is carried captive from the land of Naphthali to Nineveh, the great city. Imagine the culture shock, the displacement, the pressure to conform. All his brethren and kinsmen, he says, "did eat the bread of the Gentiles." That is, they were assimilating, partaking in non-Jewish customs and food.

Not Tobit.

"I defiled myself not with their dainties," he declares, "because I feared the Lord, and remembered the Lord with all my heart and with all my soul." He’s making a conscious choice, a daily decision to uphold his faith in the face of immense pressure. This wasn't just about food; it was about identity, about resisting the pull of assimilation.

And here's where things get interesting. Because of his unwavering faith, "God gave me grace and favour in the eyes of Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, and he appointed me over all that he had unto the day of his death." Can you believe it? From captive to trusted advisor. His integrity literally opened doors for him.

But Tobit's story isn’t just about personal success. It’s about responsibility, about using your position to help others. Before things went south, Tobit entrusted ten talents of silver, a substantial sum, to his brother Gabael, who lived in the land of Media, specifically in the city of Eages.

Why is this detail important? Because this act sets in motion a chain of events that will test Tobit's family, their faith, and their commitment to one another. It's a reminder that our actions, even seemingly small ones, can have ripple effects that we can't even imagine.

Tobit's story, at its heart, is about the enduring power of faith, integrity, and family in the face of adversity. It makes you wonder: what are the values that you hold most dear? And how do you live them out, even when it's difficult? Perhaps, like Tobit, your commitment will not only sustain you, but also pave the way for blessings you never expected.

Full source
Legends of the Jews 3:7Legends of the Jews

The story goes that Hannah, yearning for a child, prayed so fervently at the Temple that the High Priest Eli initially mistook her for being drunk! He rebuked her, but then, realizing his error, he blessed her, saying, "May the son to be born unto thee acquire great knowledge in the law." The Legends of the Jews tell us this moment transformed Hannah. Her sadness vanished, replaced by an unwavering belief that Eli's blessing would come true.

It did. After six months and a few days, Samuel was born – in the nineteenth year of her marriage and, A true miracle. Now, Samuel wasn't a robust child. He needed extra care. So, Hannah stayed home with him, missing the annual pilgrimages to the sanctuary with her husband, Elkanah. It must have been a difficult decision, torn between her devotion and her son's needs.

There's more to the story surrounding Samuel's birth. According to tradition, a divine voice had announced that a great man named Samuel would soon be born. As Ginzberg retells it in Legends of the Jews, every boy born around that time was named Samuel! Can you imagine the confusion? The anticipation? Mothers would gather, comparing their sons, trying to figure out which one would fulfill the prophecy. It's a bit like a divine talent show, isn't it?

Finally, the true Samuel emerged. He surpassed all the others in his wisdom and deeds, leaving no doubt that he was the one the prophecy foretold. As we find in Midrash Rabbah, his greatness became undeniable. Only then, certain of his destiny, was Hannah willing to part with him, to dedicate him to the service of God at the very sanctuary where her prayer had been so powerfully, albeit initially mistakenly, answered.

What does this story tell us? Perhaps it’s about the power of prayer, even when misunderstood. Maybe it's about the incredible strength and faith of a mother. Or maybe it's about how even errors can lead to blessings, shaping destinies in ways we could never have imagined. Sometimes, it's in the unexpected twists and turns that the most extraordinary stories unfold.

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