Give alms from your possessions. When you give alms, don’t let your eye be envious. Don’t turn away your face from any poor man, and the face of God won’t be turned away from you. As your possessions are, give alms of it according to your abundance. If you have little, don’t be afraid to give alms according to that little; for you lay up a good treasure for yourself against the day of necessity; because alms-giving delivers from death, and doesn’t allow […]
⛓ Read Tobit 4 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.
Allusion5
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
Tobit's counsel to give alms from one's goods, not turning the face from any poor person, parallels the test of love by sharing the world's goods with a brother in need. This deuterocanonical almsgiving ethic mirrors John's 'in deed and truth.' A strong thematic echo of practical charity.
Medium confidence'Give alms from your possessions... you will be laying up a good treasure for yourself against the day of necessity.' Tobit's almsgiving counsel that charity stores up a treasure for the day of need is a remarkably close parallel to 'laying up in store... a good foundation against the time to come' (v.19). A strong deuterocanonical source.
Medium confidenceTobit's counsel that almsgiving 'lays up a good treasure against the day of necessity' and 'delivers from death' supplies the precise economy Jesus assumes: wealth converted into mercy yields eschatological security. High coherence and Second-Temple availability make this a strong deuterocanonical echo behind 'receive you into the eternal tents.'
Medium confidenceTobit instructs giving alms from one's possessions, promising that almsgiving 'lays up a good treasure' and delivers from death. The almsgiving-as-stored-treasure theology directly parallels Jesus' 'give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.' The shared treasure-and-deliverance logic strengthens the allusion.
Medium confidenceTobit's counsel that almsgiving 'lays up a good treasure against the day of necessity' is the closest Second Temple parallel to 'sell what you have, give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.'
Medium confidenceEcho4
A fainter, low-volume reuse, carried by recurrence or thematic coherence.
Tobit's almsgiving instruction, that giving lays up a good treasure and delivers, supplies a Second-Temple almsgiving theology congruent with Paul's account of the collection as a God-glorifying ministry. The connection is to the wider piety rather than any phrase, so volume is faint and the source contested. Included to map the deuterocanonical background of the collection ethic.
Low confidenceTobit's almsgiving counsel: 'give alms from your possessions... almsgiving delivers from death.' James's coupling of mercy/almsgiving with deliverance at judgment (v.13) resonates with this deuterocanonical theology of merciful deeds. Conceptual echo.
Low confidenceTobit's instruction to give alms from one's substance, that almsgiving 'delivers from death' and 'stores up a good treasure,' is the closest Second Temple parallel to Jesus' theology of hidden, God-rewarded charity.
Low confidenceTobit's instruction to give alms from your possessions, for almsgiving 'is a good gift in the sight of the Most High' and lays up treasure against the day of necessity, reflects the same logic that deeds to the least are rendered to God and rewarded eschatologically.
Low confidence