Importance of Salt

Importance of salt.  Salt was an important aspect to sacrificial offerings.  God instructed the Israelites that, “you must not omit from your grain offering the salt of the covenant with your God.  You are to present salt with each of your offerings” (Leviticus 2:13).  Matthew Henry commentated that “among the ancients salt was a symbol of friendship”.  It was called the salt of the covenant because as men confirmed their covenants with each other by eating and drinking together, salt was used at those gatherings.  God also by accepting the people’s sacrifices and them feasting upon them, God was supping with them and they with Him, confirming His covenant with them.  Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown commentary highlights the preservative qualities of salt and compares the effects of salt to the effects the Gospel has upon an individual.  Both reference Jesus’s words, “For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. 50 Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another (Mark 9:49-50).