NOTES for Tob 3:6

It is habitual to speak to the Christians of today about the immortality of the soul, as about something which is obvious. Furthermore it supposes also the posthumous reward, in its simplest variant – the very paradise and hell. However, nothing is said in the Bible about the immortality of the soul. Equally, however as about the very soul, at least, in our understanding of its sense. This Jewish word, which in the English language is usually translated as "soul" indicates in fact a lively strength, which carries nothing personal in itself. Besides: the same strength is inherent to animals also, because they are human beings. What we experience in us as personal principle, as self-consciousness, is connected not with this lively strength, but with "the breath of life" that God breathes to man “in the nostrils” at the time of creation. The author of the Book of Tobit speaks about the same breath: if God will take away His breath to a man, the man dies. Death is the loss of "the soul" in its biblical understanding: the live strength quits man, who is transformed into shadow, just like himself former, in which there is not any more already or almost no life, but still burn weakly something similar to consciousness, although in such state man loses totally the memory of the world of the living. The world of such shadows is known to several peoples; in the Bible it is called sheol. Sometimes, however, when life becomes completely unbearable, man can ask God to interrupt his life. For that, God just needs little: only to take away to man this breath of life, which He gave him at birth. And Tobit, tired of the misfortunes of life asks particularly that to God. Suicide is never considered acceptable in the Bible; it was the violation of the sixth commandment, the commandment forbidding murder, in relation to oneself. But to ask God that If He wants, He can interrupt the useless life of man, was completely acceptable: indeed, it was not in this case about suicide, man only asked God to put an end to his life, he did not kill himself. Such a request could seem to others cowardly, as it was in the case of another biblical hero - Job, who also asked God for death, but the friends of Job blamed him of pusillanimity, but such a request was not all the same sin. And Tobit also, taken to the extreme, decides to address God with the request to interrupt his life. But here, in his life, as in the life of Job, begins something interesting and unexpected. But that’s already another history.