The salt of the earth

Disciples meant to season and preserve the world around them.

The saying comes from the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus had gone up into the mountain, "his disciples came unto him" and he taught them (Matthew 5:1-2). He had just finished the Beatitudes, ending with a blessing on those "persecuted for righteousness’ sake" and on his hearers when men should reproach and persecute them for his sake (Matthew 5:10-12).

Then, speaking to the same people, he told them what they were: "Ye are the salt of the earth" (Matthew 5:13) and, in the next breath, "Ye are the light of the world" (Matthew 5:14). Both pictures face outward. Salt is for the food it seasons and light for the house it fills, so that others "may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 5:16).

Salt was part of daily life and of worship. It made food worth eating — "Can that which hath no savor be eaten without salt?" asks Job (Job 6:6) — and it kept food from going bad. Every meal-offering in Israel was seasoned with "the salt of the covenant of thy God" (Leviticus 2:13). So to call the disciples salt is to say that the world is meant to be the better for them, as food is better for salt, and kept from corruption by their presence.

The warning matters as much as the praise: "if the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted?" The Greek verb for losing savor, mōrainō, more often means to become foolish. Travellers quoted by nineteenth-century commentators reported salt in the Holy Land that, mixed with earth or left exposed to rain and sun, went flat and was thrown into the road. However it happens, the point is plain: salt that is no longer salty is "good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men" — and a disciple who loses what makes him a disciple has lost his use to the world.

"The salt of the earth" now describes good, honest, unpretentious people — dependable, hard-working and without airs. It is warm praise, and it is often given to ordinary people rather than the great.

That use keeps something real: Jesus said this to ordinary people, not to the powerful. But it changes the subject. In Matthew 5 the phrase is not a compliment on anyone's good character in general; it describes those who follow Christ, and it comes with a purpose (to season and preserve the world around them) and a warning (salt that has lost its savor is thrown out). The modern idiom is fair when it honors plain goodness; it drops the calling and the warning that give Jesus' words their force.

salt

lost its savor

become tasteless; the verb (mōrainō) usually means "become foolish"

Salt is good: but if the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace one with another.

The same saying in Mark, joined to a call to peace: "Have salt in yourselves".

Salt therefore is good: but if even the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be seasoned? It is fit neither for the land nor for the dunghill: men cast it out. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

Luke's form, at the end of Jesus' words on the cost of discipleship.

Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer each one.

Speech "seasoned with salt": the saying applied to how Christians talk.

And every oblation of thy meal-offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meal-offering: with all thine oblations thou shalt offer salt.

Salt in Israel's worship: "the salt of the covenant of thy God".

All the heave-offerings of the holy things, which the children of Israel offer unto Jehovah, have I given thee, and thy sons and thy daughters with thee, as a portion for ever: it is a covenant of salt for ever before Jehovah unto thee and to thy seed with thee.

A lasting covenant called "a covenant of salt for ever".

Can that which hath no savor be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the white of an egg?

Salt as what makes food worth eating.

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