Covenant of Salt

Salt was and is used for the seasoning of food (Job 6:6). “Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the white of an egg?” All meat offerings were seasoned with salt “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” (Lev. 2:13).

To eat salt with one is to partake of his hospitality and derive sustenance from him; and thus he who did so was bound to look after his host’s interests. New born children were rubbed with salt (Ezekiel 16:4).
A covenant of perpetual obligation was called a “covenant of salt.” When people ate together, they commemorated their friendship with a covenant of salt.

Salt was used as a form of payment when Roman soldiers were paid with salt. The modern word salary came from this practice of paying with salt. God is providing land for the Levite priests and He seals it with a “covenant of salt”( Numbers 18:19).Again when God gave the kingdom of Israel to David, He does it by a “covenant of salt.”

In the New Testament, Jesus is speaking to the disciples during the sermon on the mount (Matthew 5:13), and He says, “Ye are the salt of the earth….” Modern Christians have entered into a covenant with God when they became believers. It is a perpetual agreement to preserve, purify and permeate the Gospel on earth.