""Sennacherib put to death many Israelites. So I stole their bodies to bury them; Sennacherib looked for them and he could not find them."" Why do we bury the dead? To honor and respect them? To provide closure and comfort to the living? To provide the dead a final resting place? Tobit buried the dead as the ultimate work of mercy, and its pervasive presence in the narrative discourse of the book of Tobit invites reflection on and consideration of the reason for the practice of burial. The narrative drama radiates a universal sense of what it means to be in exile, namely, that it is an...
""Sennacherib put to death many Israelites. So I stole their bodies to bury them; Sennacherib looked for them and he could not find them."" Why do we ...