the Week of Proper 25 / Ordinary 30
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Bible Dictionaries
Salt
Morrish Bible Dictionary
This well known and valuable condiment is found in abundance near the Dead Sea. In scripture salt is used as symbolical of moral savour and thus of a preservative. Every oblation of the meat offering was to be seasoned with salt. Leviticus 2:13 . The heave offerings given to the priest are called 'a covenant of salt.' Numbers 18:19 .
Christians are the salt of the earth, but if the salt have lost its savour it is of no use whatever.* Matthew 5:13; Mark 9:50; Luke 14:34,35 . It is typical of freshness and savour in a Christian, his heart being maintained in the sense of grace, the loss of which nothing else can supply.
* Salt in the East is not pure chloride of sodium, but mostly mixed with vegetable and earthy substances, and has been found at times, after being exposed to the sun and rain, to be quite tasteless, and perfectly useless.
The Christian's speech should be with grace, seasoned with salt (Colossians 4:6 ), not characterised by asperity, nor lacking unction, and yet morally wholesome in its character. "Every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt." Mark 9:49 . God puts all to the proof , but with the saint it is the dross that is consumed. Every sacrifice being salted with salt refers to the preservation of that which is set apart for God from corruption and impurity.
To 'eat the salt' of their masters, is used by the Persians and Hindus to imply that they are fed by their employers. This idea is found in Ezra 4:14 , where the opposers of the Jews say, "We eat the salt of the palace," as the passage is more literally translated: see margin . With reference to an infant being 'salted,' Ezekiel 16:4 , Galen records that this was done to render the skin tighter and firmer.