Leviticus 2:13
Context2:13 Moreover, you must season every one of your grain offerings with salt; you must not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be missing from your grain offering 1 – on every one of your grain offerings you must present salt.
Numbers 18:19
Context18:19 All the raised offerings of the holy things that the Israelites offer to the Lord, I have given to you, and to your sons and daughters with you, as a perpetual ordinance. It is a covenant of salt 2 forever before the Lord for you and for your descendants with you.”
Ezekiel 43:24
Context43:24 You will present them before the Lord, and the priests will scatter salt on them 3 and offer them up as a burnt offering to the Lord.
Mark 9:49-50
Context9:49 Everyone will be salted with fire. 4 9:50 Salt 5 is good, but if it loses its saltiness, 6 how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other.”
[2:13] 1 tn Heb “from upon your grain offering.”
[18:19] 2 sn Salt was used in all the offerings; its importance as a preservative made it a natural symbol for the covenant which was established by sacrifice. Even general agreements were attested by sacrifice, and the phrase “covenant of salt” speaks of such agreements as binding and irrevocable. Note the expression in Ezra 4:14, “we have been salted with the salt of the palace.” See further J. F. Ross, IDB 4:167.
[43:24] 3 sn It is likely that salt was used with sacrificial meals (Num 18:19; 2 Chr 13:5).
[9:49] 4 tc The earliest
[9:50] 5 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.
[9:50] 6 sn The difficulty of this saying is understanding how salt could lose its saltiness 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 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.