Salt in the Bible – Verses and Meaning

• Salt was used for seasoning and preserving food.
• Salt was found in a great abundance on the shore of the dead sea.
• Salt was also used with many different kind of offerings and sacrifices.
  

  Lev 2:13 – Season all your grain offerings with salt. Do not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain offerings; add salt to all your offerings.

• Every sacrifice was offered with salt as a symbol of preservation. Salt in this context symbolizes eternal preservation.
  

  Numbers 18:19 – …It is an everlasting covenant of salt before the Lord for both you and your offspring.

• Sometimes, during the war, the captured cities were sowed with salt to insure utter desolation of the place.
  

  Judges 9:45 – All that day Abimelek pressed his attack against the city until he had captured it and killed its people. Then he destroyed the city and scattered salt over it.

• To eat of a person’s salt is regarded as a token of amity and loyalty. (Covenant of Salt)
• In Palestine and surrounding countries, salt was used to make covenants between two parties.
• in New Testament, salt is used to describe a wholesome character and speech.
  

  Colossians 4:6 – Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

Parables of Salt used by Jesus

• In Matthew 5:13, it follows after the beatitudes.
  

  Matthew 5: 13 – You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

• In Mark 9, it follows after the teaching to remove anything that causes you to sin.
  

  Mark 9:49-50 – Everyone will be salted with fire. “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other.”

• In Luke 14:34-35, it follows after the teaching about the cost of discipleship.
  

  Luke 14:34-35 “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35 It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.

The symbol of salt used by Jesus clearly shows that the cost of following him, must not be taken lightly. He reminded his disciples that one can be the ‘Salt of the earth’, but if he loose the very essence of salt, then there is nothing can be done about it. There is no middle ground. Something that appears to be like a salt, but lack the very nature of salt is the useless thing. It is no longer good for anything. Similarly, if someone claims to be the follower of Christ, but lacks or looses the very essence and nature of Christ, is good for nothing!\

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