The interpretation timeline

Tob 8:2

How this passage has been read — the sources, oldest to newest.

From the early Church Fathers to now.

Tob 8:2 · Douay-Rheims
“And Tobias remembering the angel’s word, took out of his bag part of the liver, and laid it upon burning coals.”
Post-Reformation c. 1650 – 1900
1849
A.D.
1774–1849
“Bag, ( cassidili ) resembling a wallet or pannier, for provisions. (Calmet) — Liver. (Chap. vi. 8.) This mystically represented the Passion of Christ, by which the devil is expelled from men’s hearts. (St. Augustine, ser. 28, de Sanct.; Prosper, promis. ii. c. 39.) (Worthington) — Greek, “and he took the ashes of incense, and placed thereon the heart of the fish and the liver, causing them to smoke. And when the devil perceived the odour, he fled to the highest parts of Egypt, and the angel bound him,” (Haydock) confining his malice to those deserts. Jesus Christ insinuates that the devil walks through dry places, Matthew xii. 24. The angel was not seen to absent himself: (Calmet) — This country was chosen as being very remote from Media. (Houbigant) — It was afterwards sanctified by the presence of many Christian solitaries. (Haydock) — Our adversaries laugh at this account. But surely Christ has used similar expressions of binding the devil, who cannot molest people, when he is not present; (Houbigant) or do any thing without the divine permission, chap. vi. 17. (Haydock)”
Source
Modern · 1953 →

The in-app commentary runs from the Fathers to the early-modern record, then stops — that's where the public-domain sources end, not where the reading does. For the modern reading, follow the sources directly.