Bible Statements about Salt

The Bible uses salt as one of its powerful symbols. There are 80 Bible verses about Salt. Select verses are included in this message. Across Scripture, salt appears in Covenants, Purification, Prophets statements, Jesus’s teachings of in the Gospels, and in the New Testament Epistles.

Salt’s role in Covenants.

When God calls His promises a “covenant of salt,” He is saying: “My covenant is enduring, persevering, and cannot be broken.”

A Covenant is a commitment that establishes a relationship between God and his people. Covenant making is one of the most overlooked biblical themes. In the ancient Near East, sharing salt symbolized friendship, loyalty, and binding agreement.

Key Scriptures referring to Covenants. Covenants represent loyalty, permanence, and God’s faithfulness.

Exodus 30:34-35 “Then the Lord said to Moses, “Take for yourself spices, stacte and onycha and galbanum, spices with pure frankincense; there shall be an equal part of each. With it you shall make incense, a perfume, the work of a perfumer, salted, pure, and holy.” This was the incense offering an important component of priestly function in the Temple in Jerusalem.

Leviticus 2:13 “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.”

Numbers 18:17-19 “But the firstborn of an ox or the firstborn of a sheep or the firstborn of a goat, you shall not redeem; they are holy. You shall sprinkle their blood on the altar and shall offer up their fat in smoke as an offering by fire, for a soothing aroma to the Lord. Their meat shall be yours; it shall be yours like the breast of a wave offering and like the right thigh. All the offerings of the holy gifts, which the sons of Israel offer to the Lord, I have given to you and your sons and your daughters with you, as a perpetual allotment. It is an everlasting covenant of salt before the Lord to you and your descendants with you.” This is the Meat Offering for the priestly family.

2 Chronicles 13:5 “Ought ye not to know that the LORD God of Israel gave the kingdom of Israel to David for ever, even to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt?” This refers to the Davidic Covenant. It is forever because it refers to Jesus the seed of David, the Everlasting Savior. 2 Samuel 7”8-9.

Job 39:5-6 “Who sent out the wild donkey free? And who loosed the bonds of the swift donkey, To whom I gave the wilderness for a home and the salt land for his dwelling place.” God has created these creatures to sustain themselves and survive in a land with salt.

Deuteronomy 29:1&23-25 “These are the words of the covenant, which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb“ “All its land is brimstone and salt, a burning waste, unsown and unproductive, and no grass grows in it, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His anger and in His wrath.’ All the nations will say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land? Why this great outburst of anger?’ Then men will say, ‘Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt” This refers to God renewing His Covenent with the children of Israel in preparation for their entry of the land of Canaan.

Salt’s role in Purification

Ezekiel 16:3-4 “Thus saith the Lord GOD unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite. And as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all.”God speaks to Jerusalem referring to Jerusalem’s need for cleansing from Pagan origin to be acceptable to the Lord.

Ezekiel 43:23-24 “A goat and a bullock are to be salted and offered as a burnt offering to the Lord “And the Lord said unto me on the second day thou shalt offer a kid of the goats without blemish for a sin offering; and they shall cleanse the altar, as they did cleanse it with the bullock. When thou hast made an end of cleansing it, thou shalt offer a young bullock without blemish, and a ram out of the flock without blemish. And thou shalt offer them before the LORD, and the priests shall cast salt upon them, and they shall offer them up for a burnt offering unto the LORD.” The animals to be sacrificed are to be cleansed by being salted before placing them on the altar of sacrifice.

Ezra 7:21-23 “I, even I, King Artaxerxes, issue a decree to all the treasurers who are in the provinces beyond the River, that whatever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of the God of heaven, may require of you, it shall be done diligently, even up to 100 talents of silver, 100 kors of wheat, 100 baths of wine, 100 baths of oil, and salt as needed. Whatever is commanded by the God of heaven, let it be done with zeal for the House of the God of heaven, so that there will not be wrath against the kingdom of the king and his sons.” The pagan King decrees that his people provide the material needed by Ezra the priest of God for the House of God including Salt.

Psalm 107:33-34 “He turneth rivers into a wilderness, and the watersprings into dry ground; A fruitful land into salt waste, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein.” Refers to God’s judgement for the wicked by turning their wateresprings int dry salt waste.

Jesus’s referring to Salt in His teaching of His Disciples.

In saying “ye are to be salt of the earth” He is saying they are to remain faithful to Jesus and expand His Ministry.

Matt 5:13 “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men”

Mark 9:49-50 “For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.” This refers to turning away from serving God as decayed salt.

Luke 14:33-34. “So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. Salt is good, but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned?” Disciples to forsake their worldliness and commit to following Jesus.

The Apostle Paul refers to speach seasoned with salt.

Colossians 4:6 “Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.”

James in his Epistle refers to salt water and fresh water as speaking blessings and cursing.

James 3:8-12 “But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? or a vine produce figs? No fountain can yield both salt water and fresh.”