Salt?

Judges 9:45
And Abimelech fought against the city all that day; and he took the city, and slew the people that was therein, and beat down the city, and sowed it with salt.

What is the more symbolic meaning of sowing 'with salt', please?

Other refs are (Young's)

Leviticus 2:13 And every offering--thy present--with salt thou dost season, and thou dost not let the salt of the covenant of thy God cease from thy present; with all thine offerings thou dost bring near salt.

Mark 9:49 for every one with fire shall be salted, and every sacrifice with salt shall be salted.

Coloss 4:6 your word always in grace--with salt being seasoned--to know how it behoveth you to answer each one.

In Judges, it was the baddie who did the killing and sowing. Does this in any way alter the deeper meaning of the reference to salt?

Many thanks.

What is the more symbolic meaning of sowing 'with salt', please?

The symbolic meaning of "sowing a city with salt", is that the city's destruction is final and the city would now be barren and would not be rebuilt. They don't actually throw tons of salt down on a city so that life will literally not grow.

We see this brought home in Deut 29:23 and Jer 17:6.

Jer 17:5 Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.

Jer 17:6 For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.

Deu 29:23 And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:

In Jeremiah 17:6, we see several words that are very descriptive of what the Holy Spirit is trying to convey and these words are quite complimentary to the use of salt, here.

We have the following word associations from the Lord to emphasize what He is trying to tell us.

Heath - Same Hebrew word in Psalms 102:17, Isaiah 32:11, Habakkuk 3:9, the Hebrew is translated, "bare," "naked," "destitute"; but as the parallel in Jeremiah 17:8 is "tree," some plant must be meant of which this is the characteristic epithet (Jeremiah 48:6, Margin), "a naked tree."A blasted or withered tree. The "heath" was one of the plants, according to PLINY (13.21; 16.26), excluded from religious uses, because it has neither fruit nor seed, and is neither sown nor planted. On page 216 of the Ancient Hebrew Lexicon, Heath Tree a tree that is destitute, naked.
http://www.searchgodsword.org/com/jfb/view.cgi?book=jer&chapter=017

Salt - (Deuteronomy 29:23), barren ground.

Following words are pretty much self-explanatory, but coupled with salt in this context, reveal salt as not being something that is savoring but rather, where no life can and will grow.

Uninhabited -
Desert -
Parched -
Wilderness -

AtG, I found Mark 9:49 very interesting and also found this which you may find helpful. I did.

http://ntresources.com/blog/?p=53

777

Thanks a777. The link was useful.

Leviticus 2 is very instructive, if one remembers that 'meat' in the KJV actually means just FOOD.

This reminds me of John 4:

34 Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. 35 Say not ye, There are yet four months, and [then] cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.

36 And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. 37 And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. 38 I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.

The idea of reaping someone else's planting is interesting, because that first sytheful, is reminiscent of the firstfruits mentioned in Lev 2, and many other refs in the New Testament.

Also, that all the frankincense had to be burned to make sweet savour unto God. Here we see the picture of a life which is symbolically offered always with oil (Spirit), never raw, or contaminated, or unperfumed.

In fact, the 'burnt' offering is associated with the peace offering. He is our peace. He was baptised with fire - death.

A thought about salt is that it may be a shadow of the salt sea, or tears, and their connection with sorrow or repentance.

Another thing about the peace offering seems to be that there is no compulsion about it. Perhaps this is why people like Abel, Job and Noah 'found grace' in the eyes of the Lord. The mention of 'freewill offering' comes later and by then I think it usually was a different sort of gift, like money for something, or something needed for a work of God.

Hi David,

I forgot about your question - 'If you are looking at salt, and it's meaning, it would be good if you could share your understanding of the new testament meaning, especially'.

I feel as if what I have so far is largely undigested, and needs to be processed through a lot more Bible reading.

mama27 posted from Spurgeon's Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith, today's portion.

I extracted from it to add to this thread.

Sin alone is evil; the punishment which follows thereupon is as a preserving salt to keep society from putrefying.

But so, when salt is part of the sacrifice, is it an antedote to sin?

I think there are historical references to sowing a conquered city with salt as a symbolic way of saying that this destruction is to be preserved forever.

This is the obverse of Spurgeon's statement (about preserving society).

I love the way God inspires His people! Sometimes, when set against its opposite, a thought makes more sense to people (like me), who need context to simplify the issues.

So far I have ... salt not only preserves the destruction, it also preserves the life, by destroying the sin - or putrefaction - which should die, remain dead, or be made harder to cultivate again.