Matthew 5:13

Salt and Light

5:13 “You are the salt ¹  of the earth. But if salt loses its flavor, ²  how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled on by people.

Matthew 9:17

9:17 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins; ³  otherwise the skins burst and the wine is spilled out and the skins are destroyed. Instead they put new wine into new wineskins ⁴  and both are preserved.”

Matthew 15:5

15:5 But you say, ‘If someone tells his father or mother, “Whatever help you would have received from me is given to God,” ⁵ 

Matthew 25:29

25:29 For the one who has will be given more, ⁶  and he will have more than enough. But the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. ⁷ 

Matthew 26:26

The Lord’s Supper

26:26 While ⁸  they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after giving thanks he broke it, gave it to his disciples, and said, “Take, eat, this is my body.”

Matthew 26:55

26:55 At that moment Jesus said to the crowd, “Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me like you would an outlaw? ⁹  Day after day I sat teaching in the temple courts, yet ¹⁰  you did not arrest me.

¹ sn Salt was used as seasoning or fertilizer (BDAG 41 s.v. ἅλας a), or as a preservative. If salt ceased to be useful, it was thrown away. With this illustration Jesus warned about a disciple who ceased to follow him.

² sn The difficulty of this saying is understanding how salt could lose its flavor since its chemical properties cannot change. It is thus often assumed that Jesus was referring to chemically impure salt, perhaps a natural salt which, when exposed to the elements, had all the genuine salt leached out, leaving only the sediment or impurities behind. Others have suggested that the background of the saying is the use of salt blocks by Arab bakers to line the floor of their ovens; under the intense heat these blocks would eventually crystallize and undergo a change in chemical composition, finally being thrown out as unserviceable. A saying in the Talmud (b. Bekhorot 8b) attributed to R. Joshua ben Chananja (ca. a.d. 90), when asked the question “When salt loses its flavor, how can it be made salty again?” is said to have replied, “By salting it with the afterbirth of a mule.” He was then asked, “Then does the mule (being sterile) bear young?” to which he replied: “Can salt lose its flavor?” The point appears to be that both are impossible. The saying, while admittedly late, suggests that culturally the loss of flavor by salt was regarded as an impossibility. Genuine salt can never lose its flavor. In this case the saying by Jesus here may be similar to Matt 19:24, where it is likewise impossible for the camel to go through the eye of a sewing needle.

³ sn Wineskins were bags made of skin or leather, used for storing wine in NT times. As the new wine fermented and expanded, it would stretch the new wineskins. Putting new (unfermented) wine in old wineskins, which had already been stretched, would result in the bursting of the wineskins.

⁴ sn The meaning of the saying new wine into new wineskins is that the presence and teaching of Jesus was something new and signaled the passing of the old. It could not be confined within the old religion of Judaism, but involved the inauguration and consummation of the kingdom of God.

⁵ tn Grk “is a gift,” that is, something dedicated to God.

⁷ tn Grk “to everyone who has, he will be given more.”

⁸ sn The one who has nothing has even what he seems to have taken from him, ending up with no reward at all (see also Luke 8:18). The exact force of this is left ambiguous, but there is no comfort here for those who are pictured by the third slave as being totally unmoved by the master. Though not an outright enemy, there is no relationship to the master either.

⁹ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

¹¹ tn Or “a revolutionary.” This term can refer to one who stirs up rebellion: BDAG 594 s.v. λῃστής 2 has “revolutionary, insurrectionist, guerrilla” citing evidence from Josephus (J. W. 2.13.2-3 [2.253-254]). However, this usage generally postdates Jesus’ time. It does refer to a figure of violence. Luke uses the same term for the highwaymen who attack the traveler in the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:30).

¹² tn Grk “and” (καί, kai), a conjunction that is elastic enough to be used to indicate a contrast, as here.