In the first part of the book, chapters i.-iii., Tobit relates how he, his wife Anna, and his son Tobias, had been carried away captive to Nineveh in the days of Shalmaneser, king of Assyria; he emphasizes his loyalty to the Law, saying that he and his family had always been careful in keeping the ordinances of the Law both when they lived in their own land as well as in the land of their exile. He mentions specially his ardent zeal in giving alms, and in according decent burial to those of his race who had been murdered and whose dead bodies had been cast out of the walls of the city. Once when he was about to sit down to table at the feast of Pentecost he bade his son go out and seek someone who was in want and bring him in to partake of the feast. Tobias, his son, went forth accordingly; but he soon returned and reported to his father that one of his race had but now been murdered, and that his body lay in the market-place. Tobit went out forthwith, and took up the body from the street and laid it in one of the chambers till sunset, when he intended to bury it. And when the sun was set, he digged a grave and buried the dead body. But as he had touched a dead body he was unclean, and therefore could not re-enter his house, lest by contact he should cause others to be unclean,[385] so he laid down in the courtyard by the side of a wall, and because it was hot he left his face uncovered; but the droppings of some sparrows fell into his eyes, and he became blind. There follows here a short section (ii. 11-14) about Anna, which is quite out of place. The story is taken up again at chapter iii., which tells of Tobit’s sorrow at his affliction, and of his prayer to God that he may die (verses 1-6). Then a new element in the story is introduced. Sarah, the daughter of Raguel of Ecbatana in Media, suffers reproach because she has no child, although she has had seven husbands; each of these husbands had, however, been slain by Asmodæus, “the evil demon,” on the night of his wedding. Sarah, like Tobit, prays in her great affliction that she may die. Tobit and Sarah, though they know nothing of each other, have therefore this in common, that they are both in dire distress. Before proceeding with his story the narrator adds a note for the comfort of his readers to the effect that God had sent Raphael, the angel, to heal them both: “in the case of Tobit to remove the white films from his eyes, that he might see the light of God with his eyes; and in the case of Sarah, the daughter of Raguel, to give her for a wife to Tobias, the son of Tobit, and to unbind Asmodæus the evil demon from her” (iii. 17).