Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897)
Used to season food (Job 6:6), and mixed with the fodder of cattle (Isa. 30:24, “clean;” in marg. of R.V. “salted”). All meat-offerings were seasoned with salt (Lev. 2:13). To eat salt with one is to partake of his hospitality, to derive subsistence from him; and hence he who did so was bound to look after his host’s interests (Ezra 4:14, “We have maintenance from the king’s palace;” A.V. marg., “We are salted with the salt of
the palace;” R.V., “We eat the salt of the palace”). A “covenant of salt” (Num. 18:19; 2 Chr. 13:5) was a covenant of perpetual obligation. New-born children were rubbed with salt (Ezek. 16:4). Disciples are likened unto salt, with reference to its cleansing and preserving uses (Matt. 5:13). When Abimelech took the city of Shechem, he sowed the place with salt, that it might always remain a barren soil (Judg. 9:45). Sir Lyon Playfair
argues, on scientific grounds, that under the generic name of “salt,” in certain passages, we are to understand petroleum or its residue asphalt. Thus in Gen. 19:26 he would read “pillar of asphalt;” and in Matt. 5:13, instead of “salt,” “petroleum,” which loses its essence by exposure, as salt does not, and becomes asphalt, with which pavements were made. The Jebel Usdum, to the south of the Dead Sea, is a mountain of rock salt
about 7 miles long and from 2 to 3 miles wide and some hundreds of feet high.
Smith's Bible Dictionary (1863)
Indispensable as salt is to ourselves, it was even more so to the Hebrews, being to them not only an appetizing condiment in the food both of man, (Job 11:6) and beset, (Isaiah 30:24) see margin, and a valuable antidote to the effects of the heat of the climate on animal food, but also entering largely into the religious services of the Jews as an accompaniment to the various offerings presented on the altar. (Leviticus 2:13) They possessed an
inexhaustible and ready supply of it on the southern shores of the Dead Sea. [Sea, The Salt, THE SALT] There is one mountain here called Jebel Usdum, seven miles long and several hundred feet high, which is composed almost entirely of salt. The Jews appear to have distinguished between rock-salt and that which was gained by evaporation as the Talmudists particularize one species (probably the latter) as the “salt of Sodom.” The salt-pits
formed an important source of revenue to the rulers of the country, and Antiochus conferred a valuable boon on Jerusalem by presenting the city with 375 bushels of salt for the temple service. As one of the most essential articles of diet, salt symbolized hospitality; as an antiseptic, durability, fidelity and purity. Hence the expression “covenant of salt,” (Leviticus 2:13; Numbers 18:19; 2 Chronicles 13:5) as betokening an indissoluble
alliance between friends; and again the expression “salted with the salt of the palace.” (Ezra 4:14) not necessarily meaning that they had “maintenance from the palace,” as Authorized Version has it, but that they were bound by sacred obligations fidelity to the king. So in the present day, “to eat bread and salt together” is an expression for a league of mutual amity. It was probably with a view to keep this idea prominently before
the minds of the Jews that the use of salt was enjoined on the Israelites in their offerings to God.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible (1898)
SALT is abundant in Palestine. The famous Jehel Usdum is substantially a mountain of rock-salt about 7 miles long, from 1 1/2 to 3 miles wide, and several hundred feet high. This ridge, almost entirely composed of this mineral, extends to the south from the south-west corner of the Dead Sea. Besides the rock-salt to be obtained from this ridge and its vicinity, the Jews used, and preferred for domestic purposes, salt obtained by evaporation from
the waters of the Mediterranean and Dead Seas. On the eastern shore of the latter it is found in lumps often more than a foot thick, in places which the lake had overflowed in the rainy season. The stones on the shore are covered with an incrustation of lime or gypsum. Branches and twigs which fall into the water from the bushes become encased in salt; and if a piece of wood is thrown in, it soon acquires a bark or rind of salt. From this fact
some have attempted to explain the transformation of Lot's wife into a pillar of salt. Gen 19:26; while others suppose that the expression is figurative, denoting that she was made an everlasting monument of divine displeasure (salt being an emblem of perpetuity), and others still think that she was miraculously transformed into a solid column of salt. At the south-western extremity of the Dead Sea there is a plain of considerable extent east of
Jebel Usdum, the soil of which is entirely covered with salt, without the slightest trace of vegetation. This is believed by Robinson to be the "valley" (or plain) "of salt," where David's army vanquished the Edomites, 2 Sam 8:13; 1 Chr 18:12; 2 Chr 25:11. By the "salt-pits," Zeph 2:9, we are not to understand quarries from which rock-salt is extracted, but such pits as the Arabs, even at this day, make upon the shore of the Dead Sea, in order
that they may be filled when the spring freshets raise the waters of the lake. When the water evaporates, it leaves in the pits a salt crust about an inch thick, which furnishes the salt used throughout the country. Pits of this sort seem to be alluded to in Eze 47:11. In Josh 15:62 a "city of salt" is mentioned, in the neighborhood of the Dead Sea. The uses of salt are sufficiently known. Most food would be insipid without it. Job 6:6. Salt
being thus essential to the enjoyment of food, the word was used to denote the subsistence which a person obtained in the service of another. Thus, in Ezr 4:14, the words translated "we have maintenance from the king's palace" are in the original "we salt" (or are salted) "with the salt of the palace." And even now, among the Persians and East Indians, to "eat the salt" of any one is to be in his employment. Salt was also used in sacrifices. Lev
2:13; Mark 9:49. In the last passage reference is had to the perpetuity of suffering. New-born children were rubbed with salt. Eze 16:4. Salt, as a preservative from corruption, symbolized durability, fidelity, and purity. Hence an indissoluble and perpetual covenant is called a "covenant of salt." Num 18:19; Lev 2:13; 2 Chr 13:5. The idea of sacred obligation to the king is involved in the above quotation from Ezra. Among the modern Arabs, to
"eat salt" with any one is a pledge of perpetual and mutual friendship. No plants can germinate in a soil covered with salt. Hence a "salt land" is an unfruitful, desert land. Jer 17:6. Salt was also used as a visible emblem of sterility. When Abimelech took Shechem, Jud 9:45, he "beat down the city and sowed it with salt," as a token that it should continue desolate. In like manner, the emperor Frederick Barbarossa, when he destroyed Milan, in
the year 1162, caused the ground to be ploughed and strewed with salt. On the other hand, as salt renders food savorv, it is employed as an emblem of holy life and conversation. Mark 9:50; Col 4:6. In Matt 5:13, Christ calls his disciples "the salt of the earth" - i.e., of mankind, because the latter was to be enlightened and purified by their agency and preserved for their sake. There is reference in the remainder of the verse to the fact that,
as Oriental salt often contains mineral impurities, by exposure to rain or dampness this material may lose its savor or valuable part, and become "good for nothing but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men."
Schaff's Bible Dictionary
SALT, VAL'LEY OF, more accurately a "ravine," and the battlefield between Judah and Edom, It is five times mentioned in Scripture in connection with two remarkable victories of the Israelites. That of David over the Edomites when 18,000 of them were slain. 2 Sam 8:13; 1 Chr 13:12; and compare the title to Ps 60. The victory of Amaziah, who slew 10,000 Edomites and hurled 10,000 more over the "rock" (Petra). 2 Kgs 14:7; 2 Chr 25:11. It has been
proposed to locate this valley near the salt mountain Jebel Usdum, in the plains south of the Salt Sea: but Grove objects to this, and holds that "salt" is not necessarily the right translation of the Hebrew melach, and infers that Amaziah brought his prisoners to Selah (margin, "the rock," or Petra); hence that he would scarcely carry so many prisoners for 50 miles through a hostile country. It would seem more likely, therefore, that the Valley
of Salt was in Edom, near to Petra.