Covenant of Salt

The phrase "covenant of salt" is mentioned three times in the Scriptures. The other two are...

Numbers 18:19 All the heave offerings of the holy things, which the children of Israel offer unto the LORD, have I given thee, and thy sons and thy daughters with thee, by a statute for ever: it is a covenant of salt for ever before the LORD unto thee and to thy seed with thee.

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and

Leviticus 2:13 And every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt.

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What is salt?

By definition it is: A substance used for seasoning certain kinds of food, and for the preservation of meat.

For what purpose was it made?

To season: To render palatable, or to give a higher relish to, by the addition or mixture of another substance more pungent or pleasant; as, to season meat with salt.

To preserve: To save from decay. Salt is used to preserve meat.

To cure: To dry; to prepare for preservation; as, to prepare by salt, or in any manner, so as to prevent speedy purification.

Why is salt important in a believer's life?

Yeshua said in

Matthew 5:13 Ye are the salt of the earth

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What did He mean?

The Bible teaches us that we are to be salt in the world. We are to be a seasoning, a preservative and a cure in a world full of sin and hatred toward God and the things of God.

Physical characteristics of salt and their spiritual applications:

You can't eat salt by itself.

Try putting a spoonful in your mouth. You couldn't swallow it. You would choke on it. Salt is not meant to be ingested by itself. You have to put it on something in order for it to be useful. You have to use the right amount; just enough to make what you are eating palatable. Too little and it has no effect; too much and it spoils the taste. It must be used carefully and in moderation.

The Bible says in

Colossians 4:6 Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man

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We are told to use some seasoning with our speech.

We are to speak well-seasoned or salted words.

1 Corinthians 13:1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal

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Don't always be negative or critical even when you have to criticize or admonish someone. Paul tells us to rebuke with longsuffering 2 Timothy 4:2. We are to try and be patient with each other.

We are given guidelines about how to treat others with respect.

1 Timothy 5:1-2 Rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren; The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity.

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The Bible tells us our conversation should be chaste or pure

1 Peter 3:1-2 Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.

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We are also admonished to choose our words carefully. We are not to swear, curse or blaspheme.

James 5:12 But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.

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There is nothing viler to God's ears than to hear a curse.

Let your speech be such that it doesn't bring shame upon you, your testimony or Yeshua

Titus 2:7-8 In all things showing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine showing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, Sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you.

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Salt makes things taste better.

It is easier to eat bland foods when salt has been added.

Job 6:6 Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt?

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Salt is used to melt ice.

Salt is used to melt the snow and ice so it is easier for the people to get around. It works in temperatures well below freezing.

The Word of God can melt the icy cold heart of its hearers like nothing else can.

Psalm 147:16-18 He giveth snow like wool: he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes. He casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before his cold? He sendeth out his word, and melteth them: he causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow

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The Word of God can give sight to the blind, light to those in darkness, heal the brokenhearted, bind the bruised, revive the faint and rescue the perishing.

If you have to deal with grumpy people, mean people, hard people, people who put up walls as a defense, the best thing you can do is to melt their ice with the word of God.

Proverbs 15:1 A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.

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Salt is used for curing.

You use it on cucumbers to take the water out when you make pickles. It dries out the cucumbers and changes them so they can be make into something else.

The Word of God can dry up sin in a person's life. The Holy Spirit can take out what is unnecessary and unprofitable in someone's life and turn that person into something else. It can make him a new creation.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

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Are you having trouble getting victory over certain sins in your life? Are you struggling with smoking, drinking, gambling, gossip, envy, bitterness, or pride? Take heart. Victory is assured if you will let the Word of God melt your resistance to the Holy Spirit's leading. God wants to help you. Let Him. The Bible has the answers for all your problems. Trust God to keep His promises and do your part in repenting of your sins, your failings, your shortcomings and your weaknesses and claiming victory in those areas of your life.

Salting food without tasting it.

It drives me crazy. I spends a lot of time cooking and flavoring my meals with herbs and spices. I serve it and the first thing grabbed is the saltshaker. Doesn't even tasted it and already changing the flavor.

1 John 4:1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.

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When you sweat your skin tastes salty. When you cry your tears taste salty.

Salt gets in your mouth. It gets on your clothes and on anything that you touch. Everything that you come in contact with will be salty if you sweat or cry enough.

When the Holy Spirit abides in you and you get on fire for God, burn up with zeal for the things of God, and you sweat by laboring for Him you will become salty. It will automatically happen because it will come from within. Everything in your life, everything you do and everyone that you come in contact with will be salted with talk of the things of God.

Luke 6:45 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.

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The Bible tells us in

Hebrews 4:12 ... the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

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Nothing cuts like a sharp knife and that is what the Word of God is compared to.

Too much exposure to salt will raise a person's blood pressure.

When you get too "salty" it makes the lost world mad. They can't handle the things of God. They go nuts when confronted with such salt. They get angry. It makes their "blood boil."

1 Corinthians 1:18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

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Even some who are not right with God or who don't actively witness will be offended. They will claim that those who do witness openly are doing more harm than good.

Let's go back to our text verse.

2 Chronicles 13:5 Ought ye not to know that the LORD God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David for ever, even to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt?

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What is a covenant? By definition it is: A mutual consent or agreement of two or more persons, to do or to forbear some act or thing; a contract; stipulation.

When we accept Yeshua as our Saviour we make a covenant with Him. We become salt for Him.

Matthew 5:13 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.

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If you loses your zeal for the things of God, becomes backslidden and is full of sin then you will not useful to God or Yeshua. You cannot reach the lost because you has lost your salt. A ruined testimony is only good for one thing, to be trodden under the foot of lost man. And a lost man will take advantage of it.

Why give the enemy ammunition to shoot you? Remember David? When confronted by Nathan about his sin he was told: because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme 2 Samuel 12:14

Remember whom you represent. The name of Yeshua should be honored not humiliated; it should be revered not reviled; it should be exalted and not debased.

How much salt is too much salt? It's availability to us is unlimited.

Ezra 6:9 And that which they have need of, both young bullocks, and rams, and lambs, for the burnt offerings of the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, and oil, according to the appointment of the priests which are at Jerusalem, let it be given them day by day without fail

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and

Ezra 7:22 Unto an hundred talents of silver, and to an hundred measures of wheat, and to an hundred baths of wine, and to an hundred baths of oil, and salt without prescribing how much.

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Scholar Jacob Milgrom notes that salt stands in contrast to leaven and other fermentatives, whose use is forbidden on the altar. He thus perceives salt as a symbol of permanence, as opposed to leaven which produces change. Therefore, a "salt covenant" suggests an unbreakable covenant.

Scholars have noted references to salt in ancient Near Eastern treaty curses; according to these, if a treaty were violated one's land would be sowed or plowed with salt so as to impair its productivity. Similarly, the symbolic role of salt in rituals of hospitality has been mentioned in support of the notion that the use of salt in the sacrificial cult may have had a covenantal function. Notes Milgrom: "A Neo-Babylonian letter speaks of 'all who have tasted the salt of the Jakin tribe,' referring to the tribe's covenanted allies. Loyalty to the Persian monarch is claimed by having tasted the 'salt of the palace' in Ezra 4:14. And Arabic milhat, a derivative of malaha, to salt, means " treaty."
Jacob Milgrom, The JPS Torah Commentary: Numbers (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1990), p. 154.

Every heard the supperstition to throw salt over your left shoulder. While looking over the internet to see what is said about the covenant of salt, I ran across this statement.

Salt is Divine - it is believed to be able to drive off demons. It is interesting to note only the dark side forbids its use, you will not find any salt on the table or in the food served at a black witch’s sabbath or in any pagan religious offering. http://www.homeworship101.com/fyi_salt_covenant.htm

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Anyone know if this is true?

A covenant of fire, or 'purification'. Being made kadosh. Be holy as He is holy. Be holy..... How? By the covenant made with us and Yeshua, our Savior and God Almighty. He purifies us as with fire, by the Spirit he gave the world. It is a Spirit, an all consuming fire. It will consume all of your old nature, destroying it, turning it to dust. And it will create in you a new being, One New Man who glorifies Abba in all he does. Because the Spirit of fire, of the living God lives within you, burning up all you are and forming in you a new creation. One born from above, of the Spirit.

Mark 9 said:

49 For everyone will be salted with fire. 50 Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.

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Salted with fire...

Matthew 3:7-12 7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not presume to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father, for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 10 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 11 I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

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Made me think of Lor's wife, though she was saved from the fire and brimstone, she turned and looked back and became a pillar of salt. The Lord could have chosen anything for her to turn to or become, but a pillar of salt....hmmmmm

I wonder... In Moses' farewell speech he warns that a breach of the Covenant with God would bring ruin to the land, and he describes the state of affairs that would arise as follows:

All its soil devastated by sulfur and salt, beyond sowing and producing, no grass growing in it, just like the upheaval of Sodom and Gemorrah… (Deut. 29:22)

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Also the prophet Zephaniah who prophesied concerning the lands of Moab and Ammon, says they will be like Sodom and Gemorrah, "a land possessed by nettles and salt pits and a waste forever" (Zeph. 2:9).

Is there something special about the curse of the salt covenant?

I also found this...

The medical properties of salt also seem to have been known to the Israelites at an early date. Newborn infants were rubbed with it (Ezek. xvi. 4). Though at first this may have been done for religious reasons, as a protection against demons, the significance of the custom was doubtless forgotten at the time of Ezekiel, and probably much earlier. The curative and sanitary properties of salt are probably referred to in the story related in II Kings ii. 19 et seq., according to which Elisha "heals" the poisonous spring near Jericho by throwing salt into it. http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=94&letter=S

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This is a very interesting subject. Glad you brought it up.

I have been investigating what is said on the internet and the various themes involving salt are many and cover both sides of the blessings and curses.

This was discussed last year in this thread

http://www.christianforums.com/t4198583-salt-lev-213-mitzvot-p62-n99-[open].html

As far as the demonic, perhaps because that may be why it was used in the sacrifices, or have some connection?

with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt

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Salt is also used in Kashering, to remove or purge the blood from the meat or to scour a pot with.

It is of note that the saltiest place in the world is in Israel, known as the Salt Sea or Dead Sea ,the second saltiest is in the US, in Utah, the Great Salt lake.

The Dead Sea was also called the Valley of Salt and is the mostly agreed upon place of the Cities of the Plain which included S'dom and G'hmorah.

And as the days pass The Dead sea gets saltier and saltier by evaporation, mining and also the limit on the water from the Jordan reaching it. It may be in the process of revealing something long hidden.

These sinful places were to be made unihabitable by evil and I think that relates to salt. In Ezekiel 47 it says The miry places therof and the marshes thereof shall not be healed, they shall be given to salt................

If there is too much salt in the ground even plants will not grow, there are only few plants that will grow near an ocean beach, and their density of salt is far less than the Dead Seas'.

It looks as if salt can heal or curse something, interesting.

He also warned too, that salt can lose it's savour, and then becomes worthless.

I wonder if that has been translated properly?

In Mark 9:49 it says that every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice salted with salt.

Have salt in your selfs and have peace with one another.

Salt is a preservative, could that be a hint of the meaning of a salt covenant, that of preserving it for a long time?

Good thoughts Skippy.

skippys said:

Perhaps when Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth..." He meant that we are to be the catalyst from God to mankind.

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I think what you say has a familiar ring to what paul has said;

8 To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, (I was made a minister) to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery (the covenant of salt in which you speak) which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; 10 so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church (or Messianic assembly) to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord

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The manifold wisdom of God is now being made known "through the church". This is the eternal purpose of God. To be made known through his children.

1Co 3:16Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
1Co 3:17 If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are.
1Co 6:19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?

Again, Paul.

Ever wonder why the church in Jerusalem was so bewildered by him?

Acts 21: 27 When the seven days were almost over, the Jews from Asia, upon seeing him in the temple, began to stir up all the crowd and laid hands on him,28 crying out, "Men of Israel, come to our aid! This is the man who preaches to all men everywhere against our people and the Law and this place; and besides he has even brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place." Acts 25:2 And the chief priests and the principal men of the Jews informed him against Paul; and they besought him, 3 asking a favor against him, that he would send for him to Jerusalem; laying a plot to kill him on the way. 4 Howbeit Festus answered, that Paul was kept in charge at Caesarea, and that he himself was about to depart [thither] shortly. 5 Let them therefore, saith he, that are of power among you go down with me, and if there is anything amiss in the man, let them accuse him. 6 And when he had tarried among them not more than eight or ten days, he went down unto Caesarea; and on the morrow he sat on the judgment-seat, and commanded Paul to be brought. 7 And when he was come, the Jews that had come down from Jerusalem stood round about him, bringing against him many and grievous charges which they could not prove; 8 while Paul said in his defense, Neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Caesar, have I sinned at all.

Found an interesting site regarding salt...

http://www.salt.org.il/rel.html

Especially this part..

Such geometric forms , mostly made of straws, or sticks, were most efficient when constructed to allow the salt to crystallise over a large area yet not be influenced by wind and waves. These geometric forms were mainly crosses or squares with diagonal or tangential struts to strengthen the form. The most popular form of straw construction with the greatest surface area and strength, was the "Star of David".

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