Context No. 1264 of 4322 · Leviticus
Context · Reflection
Leviticus 2:11-16: in context
11“‘No meal offering which you shall offer to the LORD shall be made with yeast; for you shall burn no yeast, nor any honey, as an offering made by fire to the LORD. 12As an offering of first fruits you shall offer them to the LORD, but they shall not rise up as a pleasant aroma on the altar. 13Every offering of your meal offering you shall season with salt. You shall not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your meal offering. With all your offerings you shall offer salt. 14“‘If you offer a meal offering of first fruits to the LORD, you shall offer for the meal offering of your first fruits fresh heads of grain parched with fire and crushed. 15You shall put oil on it and lay frankincense on it. It is a meal offering. 16The priest shall burn as its memorial part of its crushed grain and part of its oil, along with all its frankincense. It is an offering made by fire to the LORD.
The law of the grain offering includes two rules about what may and may not be added. No yeast or honey is to be burned in an offering made by fire to the LORD; those things, associated with fermentation and sweetness, are excluded from the altar. But salt is required in every offering: you shall not let the salt of the covenant of your God be missing from your grain offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt.
The command about salt is the striking one: the salt of the covenant of your God must never be missing from the offering. Salt, in the ancient world, was a symbol of permanence, of preservation, of a bond that does not spoil; a covenant sealed with salt was a covenant meant to last. So God requires salt on every offering as a reminder that the relationship between him and his people is a covenant of salt, enduring, incorruptible, not something that ferments and sours like yeast or cloys and spoils like honey, but something preserved and lasting. And there is a forward reach in this. Jesus tells his followers that they are the salt of the earth, and calls them to have salt in themselves; the enduring, preserving quality that God required on the altar is now to mark the lives of his people. To be salt is to be a preserving, permanent presence, a covenant faithfulness that does not spoil. The offering was never to lack the salt of the covenant, and neither is the life offered to God; the relationship is meant to have the quality of salt, lasting, incorruptible, and preserving whatever it touches.
Does my relationship with God have the quality of salt, an enduring, incorruptible covenant faithfulness rather than something that ferments and sours, and am I a preserving, salt-like presence to the world around me?
Sources
- Leviticus 2:13: you shall not let the salt of the covenant of your God be missing from your grain offering
- Matthew 5:13: you are the salt of the earth
- Mark 9:50: have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another