FROM THIS WEEK’S TORAH PORTION – VAYYIQ’RA:

“And season with salt every offering of your grain offering, and do not allow the salt of the covenant of your Elohim to be lacking from your grain offering. With all your offerings you bring salt.”

Salt has been used since ancient times to express promises and friendship between people. It was even considered by some to be divine. Even today, in many Middle Eastern cultures, if two men partake of salt together, they are sworn to protect one another – even if they had previously been enemies.

In the ancient world, ingesting salt was a way to make an agreement legally binding. If two parties entered into an agreement, they would eat salt together in the presence of witnesses, and that act would bind their contract. King Aviyah’s speech in 2 Chronicles 13:5 mentions just such a salt covenant: “Don’t you know that the YHWH, the Elohim of Israel, has given the kingship of Israel to David and his descendants forever by a covenant of salt?” Here, Aviyah refers to the strong, legally binding promise of YHWH to give Israel to David and his sons forever.

Torah Law commands the use of salt in all grain offerings and makes clear that the “salt of the covenant” should never be missing from the grain offerings of Israel (Leviticus 2:13). Since the Levitical priests did not have land of their own, YHWH promised to provide for them via the sacrifices of the people, and He called this promise of provision a “salt covenant” (B’midbar 18:19).

Salt has always been known for its preservative properties, and it is also possible that YHWH instructed the use of salt so that the meat would last longer and taste better – and thus be of more value to the priests who depended upon it for their daily food. Today, salt is easy to come by in our culture, and we don’t necessarily need it as a preservative because of refrigeration. But to the people of Yeshua’s day, salt was an important and precious commodity.

The salt covenant is never explicitly defined in scripture, but we can infer from the understanding of salt’s value and the contexts in which a salt covenant is mentioned in scripture that it has much to do with the keeping of promises and with YHWH’s beneficence toward man. In various contexts, salt is used metaphorically to signify permanence, loyalty, durability, fidelity, usefulness, value, and purification. Entering into a Covenant of Salt means binding oneself to another in utmost loyalty and truthfulness, even suffering death, rather than breaking the covenant. For this very reason a Covenant of Salt was never done lightly or haphazardly.

Perhaps these facts about salt and the covenants made with it will provide you with a better understanding of what Yeshua meant when he said to his disciples, “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." (Mattithyahu 5:13).”