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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, November 5, 1867

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. XXX, No. 21

Salt. Matt. v, 13.

Ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.

Luke says:

Salt is good; but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill; but men cast it out. He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear. Luke xiv, 34.

The following interesting observations, throwing light on these passages of Scripture, we take from Watson’s Biblical and Theological Dictionary.

Although salt, in small quantities, may contribute to the communicating and fertilizing of some kinds of stubborn soil, yet, according to the observations of Pliny, “all places in which salt is found are barren and produce nothing.” The effect of salt, where it abounds, on vegetation, is described by burning, in Deut. xxix, 23: “The whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt of burning.” Thus Volney, speaking of the borders of the Asphaltic lake, or Dead sea, says: “The true cause of the absence of vegetables and animals is the acrid saltness of its waters, which is infinitely greater than that of the sea. The land surrounding the lake, being equally impregnated with that saltness, refuses to produce plants; the air itself, which is by evaporation loaded with it, and which moreover receives vapors of sulphur and bitumen, cannot suit vegetation; whence that dead appearance which reigns around the lake.” So a salt land, Jer. xvii, 6, is the same as the “parched places of the wilderness,” and is descriptive of barrenness, as saltness also is, Job xxxix, 6; Ps. cvii, 34; Eze. xlvii, 11; Zech. ii, 9. Hence the ancient custom of sowing an enemy’s city, when taken, with salt, in token of perpetual desolation, Judges ix, 45; and thus in after times the city of Milan was burned, razed, sown with salt, and ploughed by the exasperated emperor, Frederic Barbarossa. The salt used by the ancients was what we call rock, or fossil salt; and also that left by the evaporation of salt lakes. Both these kinds were impure, being mixed with earth, sand, &c., and lost their strength by deliquescence. Maundrell, describing the valley of salt, says: “On the side toward Gibul there is a small precipice, occasioned by the continual taking away of the salt; and in this you may see how the veins of it lie. I broke a piece of it, of which that part that was exposed to the sun, rain, and air, though it had the sparks and particles of salt, yet it had perfectly lost its savour; the inner part, which was connected with the rock, retained its savour, as I found by proof.” Christ reminds his disciples, Matt. v, 13: “Ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.” This is spoken of the mineral salt as mentioned by Maundrell, a great deal of which was made use of in offerings at the temple; such of it as had become insipid was thrown out to repair the road. The existence of such a salt, and its application to such a use, Schoetgenius has largely proved in his “Hora Hebraica.” The salt unfit for the land, Luke xiv, 34, Le Clerc conjectures to be that made of wood ashes, which easily loses its savour, and becomes no longer serviceable.