tobine

[Ger. tobin; Dut.tabijn.] Fabric : A stout, twilled silk, much resembling Florentine, used for dre es. Tō-bit, s. [Gr. Tobit, To be it .] Apocrypha : A book generally placed between 2 Esdras and Judith, and containing fourteen chapters. A pious man, Tobit by name, resident in This be in Naphthali, was taken captive by Eneme ar (Shalmaneser), king of As syria, and located in Nineveh. When his countrymen were put to death by the king's order, their bodies were thrown into the streets. Tobit made a practice of burying them, and compromised himself by these acts of humanity. Once, when he had buried a body, and, being in consequence ceremonially unclean, was sleeping outside by the wall of his court-yard, "the sparrows muted warm dung" into his eyes and made him blind (i., ii.). In the days of his prosperity he had lent ten talents of silver to a countryman, Gabael, who lived at Rages in Media. At another Median city, Ecbatana, was a relative of his called Raguel, whose daughter Sara had been married to seven husbands, all of whom had been killed by As mode us, the evil spirit, on the marriage-night before they could po e their bride. To recover the lent money, Tobit despatched his son Tobias, having as his companion a man-servant. The two set out for Rages, taking Ecbatana on the way. As Tobias was bathing in the Tigris, a fish leaped out of the water, attempting to devour him; but he caught his a ailant, which was cooked and eaten by the travelers, the heart, the liver, and the gall being kept by Tobias, on the advice of his companion, the heart and the liver to be smoked for the expulsion of evil spirits from persons posand the gall to remove whitene in the (iii.-vi.). Arrived at Ecbatana, he married the maiden, smoking out the evil spirit who would have made away with him. During the marriage festivities the companion was despatched to Rages for the lent money, and obtained it, the two ultimately returning with the bride to Nineveh to Tobit, whose blindne was cured by the gall of the fish (vii.-xi.). When the time came for paying the servant, he declined all compensation, and revealed himself to be Raphael, one of seven angels of exalted rank and function (xii.). Sincere thanksgiving followed to God, who had sent the angel (xiii.). By direction of Tobit, Tobias removed from Nineveh, the destruction of which had been prophesied by Jonah (xiv.; cf. Jonah iii. 4. .). Viewed as a tale designed to commend piety and trust in God, the book of Tobit evinces considerable genius, the plot being well sustained, and some of the scenes, depicting domestic life, being beautifully drawn. It resembles a modern novel in making its virtuous hero struggle with adversity, in having love scenes and a marriage, and a personage apparently of humble rank ultimately proved to be of a very high order, with a general diffusion of happine at the close. Whether or not there is in 4112 it a nucleus of historic truth cannot now be known; the most of it is clearly unhistoric. The expulsion of evil spirits by the smoke of the burning heart and liver of a fish, and the curing of eye-disease by its gall, are mentioned apparently not as miracles, but as parts of the ordinary course of nature. A fish large enough to threaten the life of Tobias is eaten by him and the angel seemingly at a single meal. Finally, as shown by Prof. Sayce ( The Wit ne of Ancient Monuments , pp. 38, 39), it was not Shalmaneser, but Tiglath Pileser, who carried the people of Naphthali captive (cf. Tobit i. 2, 3, & 2 Kings xv. 29.); Sennacherib's father was not Shalmaneser, but Sargon (Tobit i. 15); it was not fifty five days, but twenty years, after the return of Sennacherib from Palestine that he was murdered by his sons (21). It is doubtful if either Rages or Ecbatana existed at the time when Tobit is said to have lived (i. 14, iii. 7). Those who captured Nineveh were Kyaxares and Nabopola or, not Nebuchadnezzar and A uerus (Xerxes), the latter of whom did not live till 150 years after the time when Nineveh fell (xiv. 15). It is believed that Tobit was written about 350 B. C. Opinions differ as to whether or not it was first published in Greek, Aramean original. or whether there may have been a Hebrew or an to-bog-an, to-bog gan, *to-bog'-gin, s. [A corrupt. of American Indian odabogan =a sled or sledge.] 1. A kind of sled used for sliding down snow-covered slopes. It is simply a piece of birch or ba wood, a quarter of an inch thick, from five to eight feet long by one or two broad, bent up in front like the dash-board of a sleigh, and braced by several cro -pieces of hard wood a foot apart, and by two round rods, one on each side, on top of the cro pieces, all fastened by catgut to the sleigh. The bend at the bow is strengthened by two cro -pieces, and kept in shape by catgut strings at the ends bound to the front cro -piece and rod. Grooves are cut on the under side of the to bogan to let the knots sink below the wood. 2. A sledge to be drawn by dogs over snow.