Jesus Use Of Salt In The Grapes Of Wrath

The location is a mountainside where Jesus delivers this message, somewhere between Galilee and Capernaum. The mountainside provided area for His disciples to be nearer to him instead of the crowds that had been following Him. The salt as Jesus describes in this passage is common in this area due to the Dead Sea. There are several uses of salt in New Testament times being a seasoning to bring out flavor and aroma, a preservative to slow meat decay, or in small amounts a fertilizer to grow healthy crops. Due to this variety of uses of salt, the application could be intended as a broad application instead of specific. Jews regarded salt as a basic life need. Furthermore, an ancient Roman official is known to have commented that “there is nothing more useful than salt and sunshine”. (Zondervan background commentary)

2) Salt that was collected from the Dead Sea by evaporation included impurities. This mixture looked like pure salt, but it was unusable for either preservation or seasoning thus being regarded as losing its taste. 3) Arab bakers lined the bottom of their ovens with salt blocks and over time the blocks crystalized and were no longer usable. 4) Jesus may have been alluding to a well-known proverbial saying from a Rabbi declaring impossibility of mule bearing young. For mules cannot bear young as salt cannot lose its