SALT

5 When you are with unbelievers, always make good use of the time. 6 Be pleasant and hold their interest when you speak the message. Choose your words carefully and be ready to give answers to anyone who asks questions.[1]

Matthew 5:13

13 You are like salt for everyone on earth. But if salt no longer tastes like salt, how can it make food salty? All it is good for is to be thrown out and walked on.[2]

Mark 9:49-50

49 Everyone must be salted with fire.

50 Salt is good. But if it no longer tastes like salt, how can it be made salty again? Have salt among you and live at peace with each other. [3]

Luke 14:34

34 Salt is good, but if it no longer tastes like salt, how can it be made to taste salty again?[4]

Salt. This mineral is sodium chloride, a white crystalline substance used mainly for seasoning and as a preservative (Job 6:6). Salt is not only one of the most important substances mentioned in the Bible, but it is a necessity of life. The Hebrew people were well aware of the importance of salt to health (Job 6:6).

High concentrations of salt exist in the Dead Sea, a body of water that is nine times saltier than the ocean and is sometimes called the Salt Sea (Gen. 14:3). The ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah may have been located near the south end of the Dead Sea. Here Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt (Gen. 19:26).

An ancient method of extracting salt from sea water was to collect salt water in saltpits—holes dug in the sand; the water evaporated, leaving the salt behind (Zeph. 2:9). Salt pans were later used for this purpose.

Salt had a significant place in Hebrew worship. It was included in the grain offering (Lev. 2:13), the burnt offering (Ezek. 43:24), and the incense (Ex. 30:35). Part of the Temple offering included salt (Ezra 6:9). It was also used to ratify covenants (Num. 18:19; 2 Chr. 13:5). Newborn babies were rubbed with salt in the belief that this promoted good health (Ezek. 16:4).

During times of war, the enemies’ lands were sown with salt to render them barren (Judg. 9:45). In Roman times salt was an important item of trade and was even used for money. Roman soldiers received part of their salary in salt.

Jesus described His disciples as the salt of the earth, urging them to imitate the usefulness of salt (Matt. 5:13; Col. 4:6).

Salt. Indispensable as salt is to ourselves, it was even more so to the Hebrews, being to them not only an appetizing condiment in the food both of man, Job 11:6, and beast, Isa. 30:24, see margin, and a valuable antidote to the effects of the heat of the climate on animal food, but also entering largely into the religious services of the Jews as an accompaniment to the various offerings presented on the altar. Lev. 2:13. They possessed an inexhaustible and ready supply of it on the southern shores of the Dead Sea. [Sea, The Salt.] There is one mountain here called Jebel Usdum, seven miles long and several hundred feet high, which is composed almost entirely of salt. The Jews appear to have distinguished between rock-salt and that which was gained by evaporation, as the Talmudists particularize one species (probably the latter) as the “salt of Sodom.” The salt-pits formed an important source of revenue to the rulers of the country, and Antiochus conferred a valuable boon on Jerusalem by presenting the city with 375 bushels of salt for the temple service. As one of the most essential articles of diet, salt symbolized hospitality; as an antiseptic, durability, fidelity, and purity. Hence the expression “covenant of salt,” Lev. 2:13; Num. 18:19; 2 Chron. 13:5, as betokening an indissoluble alliance between friends; and again the expression “salted with the salt of the palace,” Ezra 4:14; not necessarily meaning that they had “maintenance from the palace,” as the Authorized Version has it, but that they were bound by sacred obligations of fidelity to the king. So in the present day, “to eat bread and salt together” is an expression for a league of mutual amity. It was probably with a view to keep this idea prominently before the minds of the Jews that the use of salt was enjoined on the Israelites in their offerings to God.[5]

[1]The Contemporary English [computer file], electronic ed., Logos Library System, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson) 1997, c1995 by the American Bible Society. [2]The Contemporary English [computer file], electronic ed., Logos Library System, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson) 1997, c1995 by the American Bible Society. [3]The Contemporary English [computer file], electronic ed., Logos Library System, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson) 1997, c1995 by the American Bible Society. [4]The Contemporary English [computer file], electronic ed., Logos Library System, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson) 1997, c1995 by the American Bible Society. [5]William Smith; revised and edited by F.N. and M.A. Peloubet, Smith’s Bible dictionary [computer file], electronic ed., Logos Library System, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson) 1997.

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