Food and drink
Salt
Hebrew melach · Greek halas · mostly from the Dead Sea
Salt came mainly from the Dead Sea, which the Old Testament calls the Salt Sea (Numbers 34:3). Water was left to evaporate in shallow pools and marshes along its shore (Ezekiel 47:11), and near its southern end rises Mount Sedom, a ridge of rock salt whose salt pillars are nicknamed “Lot’s wife”. Salt flavored plain everyday food — Job asks whether “tasteless food” is “eaten without salt” (Job 6:6) — and it kept fish and meat from spoiling. Newborn babies were rubbed with salt (Ezekiel 16:4).
Grain offerings were seasoned with salt (Leviticus 2:13). Eating salt together at a meal bound people to each other, and a lasting agreement was called “a permanent covenant of salt” (Numbers 18:19). Abimelech sowed a conquered city with salt (Judges 9:45). Jesus speaks of salt that “loses its savor” (Matthew 5:13). By one explanation, salt from the Dead Sea area was mixed with other minerals, and when damp washed the salt out, only a tasteless powder was left.
Key verses
And you shall season each of your grain offerings with salt. You must not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain offering; you are to add salt to each of your offerings.Is tasteless food eaten without salt, or is there flavor in the white of an egg?On the day of your birth your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water for cleansing. You were not rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths.But the swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be left for salt.You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its savor, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.Sources
Adapted and shortened from the Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0
Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary © 2023 Tyndale House Publishers · CC BY-SA 4.0 — Food and Food Preparation: Vegetables and Seasoning; Dead Sea; Covenant of Salt*
Adapted from Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary: articles chosen, shortened and retold in our own words (history, nature and daily life only) and, in languages other than English, machine-translated. The original work by Tyndale House Publishers is available for free at tyndaleopenresources.com.
