You shall season all your grain offerings with salt. You shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be missing from your grain offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt. - Lev. 2: 13 (ESV)
Before we get into the core of this verse, let us understand the grain offering. The grain offering (also called the meal offering or cereal offering) was one of the main offerings presented by the Jews in worship to the Lord. It was formally instituted in Leviticus 2 for use in the Jewish tabernacle. It would later be practiced in the Jewish temple as well.
In Leviticus 2, the teaching regarding the grain offering includes four main sections: the uncooked offerings (Leviticus 2:1-3), the cooked grain offerings (Leviticus 2:4-10), the ingredients involved (Leviticus 2:11-13), and the grain offerings given as first fruits (Leviticus 2:14-16). Unlike the burnt offering (Leviticus 1), the grain offering did not include meat. Therefore, it did not include blood. Also, since it originated in the wilderness years in the desert, the grain offering likely was relatively uncommon and may have involved offering grain seeds rather than mature grain.
The grain offering also differed from the burnt offering in other significant ways. For example, only a portion of the grain was burned. The priests could use the rest for food. The opposite was true of the burnt offering in which only a small portion could be kept to eat. Also, while the burnt offering was for atonement of sin, the grain offering's focus was worship. A person could add grain to it to varying degrees.
Another important aspect of the grain offering was that it had to be pure. No leaven (yeast) or honey could be added to the grain. Both would cause the grain to decompose faster. Oil and frankincense were also to be added, ingredients often associated with joy or celebration. Salt was also included.
The reason for the salt is what we’ll be focusing on today. More specifically as many of your bibles might read today, the covenant of salt is what we’re interested in understanding. Though it is used only three times in Scripture, it has great significance to the believer in Christ today.
The first time this phrase is found is in Leviticus 2:13 where the order of the words is “salt of the covenant.” The context of this passage is the grain offering, which was to have salt added to it. But the Spirit didn’t stop with just the grain offerings. He had Moses write in the same verse that the Israelites were to “add salt to all your offerings.” Thus, all offerings made by the Israelites to the Lord, not just grain offerings, were to have salt added to them. Notice here that the offerings were to be seasoned with salt, which is identified as the salt of the covenant.
The second usage, found in Numbers 18:19, is also in the context of offerings. This time, however, the word order is “covenant of salt”. In Numbers 18, the Lord tells Moses to instruct Aaron and the Levites that it is their responsibility to take care of the Tabernacle. Moses was also to let them know that all the holy offerings the Israelites gave to the Lord back, He would give to Aaron and his sons as their portion and regular share. This was their allotment, as they were not going to receive any inheritance in the Land because God was their inheritance. All the offerings, except for the burnt offerings, belonged to them. God was letting them know that He Himself was going to provide for them through the offerings given by the people. “All the holy contributions that the people of Israel present to the Lord I give to you, and to your sons and daughters with you, as a perpetual due. It is a covenant of salt forever before the Lord for you and for your offspring with you.” - Num. 18: 19 (ESV). The priests were to serve God and trust Him for their livelihoods and they could base their trust on this covenant of salt.
The last time the phrase is found is in 2 Chronicles 13:5. In this particular passage the Lord gave the kingship of Israel to David and his descendants forever through a “covenant of salt.”
So, what does this covenant of salt mean? It is biblical phrase for a two-way agreement, the inviolability of which was symbolized by salt. An Ancient Middle Eastern saying, “There is bread and salt between us,” meant that a relationship had been confirmed by sharing a meal. Salt symbolized the life and enduring nature of the alliance. In the OT salt appears in the relationship between God and Israel. As a purifying agent and preservative in the cereal offering, salt symbolized the indissoluble nature of the covenant between God and Israel.
As salt was regarded as a necessary ingredient of the daily food, and so of all sacrifices offered to The Lord(Lev 2:13), it became an easy step to the very close connection between salt and covenant-making. When men ate together they became friends. Therefore the Arabic expressions, "There is salt between us"; "He has eaten of my salt," which means partaking of hospitality which cemented friendship. This is the context of "eat the salt of the palace" in Ezra 4:14. In the Ancient Near Eastern part of the world, covenants were generally confirmed by sacrificial meals and salt was always present. Since salt is also a preservative, it would easily become symbolic of an enduring covenant. So offerings to God were to be by a statute forever, "a covenant of salt for ever before the Lord" (Num 18:19). David received his kingdom forever from the Lord by a "covenant of salt" (2 Chron 13:5). But this phrase is not only used in the Middle Eastern part of the world. This is the most likely origin of the hindi phrase ‘namak haraam’ (generally used in the context of one who has betrayed) or one who has been unfaithful to the salt eaten together. This same sort of context is found all across the Eastern part of the world, because this context of salt was used in place of verbal agreements. India and the North East is no exception. In the Rongmei tribe of North East India, there is a concept of ‘Tsagoitai’, wherein two parties trying to reach a settlement after a disagreement would negotiate and then the guilty party would give the other salt in order to acknowledge that they are wrong and they have now reached a peaceful settlement. In the context of Nagaland, India, the land for Patkai Christian College was negotiated over a deal with the village elders of Chumukedima and to seal the deal, the college founders gave the village elders a bag of salt and a rooster. You yourselves might be familiar with similar practises of salt and food being used to come to an agreement in your context and upbringing.
Why is this salt so important to people of that time? There is a book written on it. Salt: A World History. The author chronicles how salt was the root cause for wars waged and agreements made; in short how salt was influential in shaping the history of the world. For our understanding, let's remember this was around 3,000 years ago. Salt was like gold, rare and only for the wealthy. This was the reason why when the British made salt even more inaccessible to the common man, Gandhi led the salt march to Dandi to give the common person access to salt. For traders, salt was used to pay wages for a long time.
Salt was carried by many travelers. They each had a pouch containing salt. When two travelers came into agreement on something, they'd seal the agreement with an exchange of salt. I give you a pinch of mine, you give me a pinch of yours, and we both place that salt in our pouches. It implies that for either of us to break the agreement, we'd have to find the salt that was given and return it to take back our agreement. Or, in other words, it was a lasting agreement since it was going to be next impossible to segregate the salt that belongs to you in the pouch.
What is God trying to say with the use of salt? God is using like He always does, our cultural context and limited understanding to explain things to us. God is saying that He wanted us to exchange salt with us. That God wanted to enter into an everlasting agreement with us. God provides the salt from the earth and we exchange it with Him in an offering, thus sealing an agreement. The terms of the agreement are simple. He will be our God and we will keep our trust in Him and depend on Him. Why? Because we have exchanged salt!
I want you to understand the implications of this statement. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” - Rom. 5: 8 (ESV) We may have walked away from God, but He still kept up His part of the covenant of salt He made with us aeons ago. He had no need to make a covenant with us in the first place. He is God. But the continued motif of God doing His part to make Himself available to us is very clear. We his creation are to choose to return to Him and submit ourselves whole. Despite Him being more than able to control us as robots, He will not. He would rather use reason, intellect, emotions and conversations to draw us to Him. Why? Because He is the God of Amazing Grace. God’s tenderness and compassion avalanche upon us from the peaks of his steadfast love and mercy.
Perhaps a quote from the French philosopher Blaise Pascal will put things in their proper context: “To make a man a saint, grace is absolutely necessary and whoever doubts it, does not know what a saint is or what a man is.” Why? Because every saint was once a sinner and every man has a future in the Lord Jesus. Let us make no mistake Church. If we are able to partake of God’s eternal blessings for us, it is purely because of His grace. In his devotional about the same, while meditating on Lev. 2: 13, Richard Hawker wrote in The Poor Man's Morning Portion, “Ponder over these words, my soul; and looking up for grace, and the divine teachings, see whether Jesus is not sweetly typified here. Was not Jesus the whole sum and substance of every offering under the law? The Holy Ghost taught the church this, when he said the law was a shadow of good things to come, but the body is of Christ. And did not the church, by faith, behold him as the Salt which seasoned and made savory the whole? Moreover, as all the sacrifices were wholly directed to typify Him who knew no sin, but became sin for his people, the seasoning the sacrifice with salt, which was also a type of Christ’s purity and sinlessness, became a sweet representation to denote that the sinner, when he came with his offering, came by faith; to intimate that he looked for acceptance in the Lord as his sacrifice, and for preservation in the salt of his grace, in Christ Jesus. And who then, among believers now, would ever approach without an eye to Jesus, and the seasoning with this salt all his poor offerings. Lord, grant that the Salt of the covenant of my God may never be lacking; for where Jesus is not, there can be no acceptance. Lord, let me have this Salt in myself, and may every renewed presentation of myself be there salted. Then shall I be as the salt of the earth, amidst not only the putrefactions of the world, but the corruptions of my own heart. Lord, say to us, and impart the blessing of thyself in saying it, Have salt in yourselves; and then shall we have peace with thee and with one another.” In those last few words, Hawker is actually referring to Mark 9:50 (ESV), “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.”
It is therefore we celebrate this covenant of salt that the Lord shared with us. That in the light of this salt, we might stand strong no matter what. Because He is our God and He has not forgotten us, despite us constantly forgetting Him. Even when we rebel and sin, like each one of us seated here has, He grants us grace and how it abounds! He seeks us and keeps us, for all He wants of us. It is in remembrance of this grace and the duty it behooves us to remember that we are Covenanted to Engage. We're to engage the world around us with the truth of Christ.
I’ll end with this true story. A boy was born in 1725. The only godly influence in his life was his mother, whom he had for only seven years. When she died, his father remarried, sent him to a strict military school. The boy rebelled and ran away at the age of ten. A year later, he renounced school forever and became a seaman apprentice. He hoped to step into his father's trade and learn to navigate a ship. Gradually, he gave himself over to the everything else other than God. He did that until he entered the military service, where discipline kept he in check. Still, he rebelled. His spirit would not break, and he became increasingly more and a rebel.
He despised so many things in the military that he finally deserted, only to be captured and beaten publicly several times. After enduring the punishment, he again fled. He entertained thoughts of suicide on his way to Africa, the place he could get farthest from anyone that knew him.
Somehow, through a process of events, he met a Portuguese slave trader and lived in his home. His wife hated the boy, now a young man. She beat him, and made him eat like a dog on the floor of the home. If he refused, she would whip him with a lash. He fled penniless, with only the clothes on his back, to the shoreline of Africa where he built a fire and attracted a ship that was passing by. The skipper was surprised to learn that he was a skilled navigator. He lived on board for a long period of time. It was a slave ship; it was not uncommon for as many as six hundred Africans to be in the hold of the ship, being taken to America.
He went through all sorts of narrow escapes with death only a hair breath away on a number of occasions. One time he opened some crates of rum and got everybody on the crew drunk. The skipper, incensed with his actions, beat him, threw him down below, and he lived on stale bread and sour vegetables for weeks. He brought the young man above to beat him again, and he fell overboard. He couldn't swim so he harpooned the young man to get him back on the ship. He lived with the scar in his side, big enough for anyone to put a fist into, until the day of his death.
On board, he was inflamed with fever. He was enraged with humiliation. A storm broke out, and he wound up again in the hold of the ship. To keep the ship afloat, he worked alone as a servant of the slaves. There, bruised and confused, bleeding, diseased, he was the epitome of the degenerate man.
Remembering the words of his mother, he cried out to God, calling upon His grace and mercy to deliver him. The only glimmer of light he found was in a crack in the ship in the floor above him, and he looked up to it and screamed for help. God heard him.
Thirty-one years passed, He gave up his former lifestyle and married his childhood sweetheart. He entered the ministry. In every place that he served, rooms had to be added to the building to handle the crowds that came to hear the Gospel that was presented and the story of God's grace in his life. He died in 1807 and the tombstone above reads:
Born 1725, died 1807. A clerk, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he once long labored to destroy. He decided before his death to put his life's story in verse. This person was John Newton and that has become this song we love, Amazing Grace.
Let us pay attention to the fact that we are sinners who God calls saints and that we are so only because of His grace, because of the covenant of salt that He chose to share with us. Let us remember therefore that we are called to be the salt of the earth, for we are made whole only due to this covenant of salt that keeps God’s faithfulness in our lives. Let our lives be a song for His glory, for He who saved us deserves much better than who we are. I say this to you even as i ponder as did A C Craig on the fact that, “The paradox of the pulpit is that its occupant is a sinner whose chief right to be there is his perpetual sense that he has no right to be there, and is there only by grace and always under a spotlight of divine judgment.”
Painting courtesy: Alicia Ludwig https://mojarto.com/prints/ludwig-alicia/seeing-blue-ii-227362