H. Clay Trumbull

“ Thus we see that the first three of the ten requirements of the loving covenant of God's people with their God are simply the requirements to worship God as the only God, to worship him in unhindered spirituality, and to worship him in all sincerity. These three fundamental requirements seem to have been in the mind of our Lord Jesus when he said to the woman of Samaria at the well of Jacob: "God"—the One God—"is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth." ”

“ Yet this doomed and dead sea of salt is a source of life to man in its exhaustless supply of salt for his use. Preeminently is this salt of the Dead Sea a savor of life and of death.
The salt of the ocean is the world's treasure. Without it the greater portion of the earth's inhabitants would perish for lack of what vivifies and preserves animal life. Yet because of the salt in the ocean the very water, which man and beast must have or perish of thirst, is useless to both man and beast. ”

“ In primitive thought, and in a sense in scientific fact, the blood is the life and the life is in the blood; hence they who share in each other's blood are sharers in a merged and common life. Covenanting in this way with a solemn appeal to God, or to the gods, has been a mode of sacred union from the earliest dawn of human history. ”

“ Bread is the basis of a common meal, as blood is the basis of a common life. As, in the sacrifices, the body of the animal offered in sacrifice was the basis of a covenant meal, while the blood was the basis of union with the divine; so in the symbolism of bread and wine, in any sacramental meal, or in any meal of sacred covenanting between two persons, the bread stood for the flesh, and the wine for the blood. So, also, when bread and salt are used together, the salt would seem to stand for blood or life, and the bread to stand for the flesh or the body. ”

“ As I have come to see it, as a result of my researches, the very idea of a "covenant" in primitive thought is a union of being, or of persons, in a common life, with the approval of God, or of the gods. This was primarily a sharing of blood, which is life, between two persons, through a rite which had the sanction of him who is the source of all life. ”

“ Our English word "covenant," like many another word in our language and in other languages, fails to convey, or even to contain, its fullest and most important meaning in comparison with the idea back of it. As a matter of fact, this must be true of nearly all words. Ideas precede words. Ideas have spirit and life before they are shaped or clothed in words. Words have necessarily human limitations and imperfectness, because of their purely human origin.
When an idea first seeks expression in words, it is inevitable that it be cramped by the means employed for its conveyance. ”

“ The recognized meaning of these words in the days [Pg 76] of Jesus intensified their importance at every use of them, as when it was said that "in Him was life; and the life was the light of men." [123] Salt was blood; blood was life; salt was life; life was light; blood and salt and light were life.
Among folk-lore customs on both sides of the ocean, salt and a candle are carried across the threshold on moving to a new house, as if representing life and light as needs in a new home. Sometimes the Bible also is included, as if in recognition of the true basis of all sacred covenanting. ”

“ Turning from the first table of the covenant with its upward look, to the second table with its outward look, we find that each new requirement in its order stands for a great principle which is applicable alike to all peoples and to all times, and which has its basis in man's loving union with God. The first of this series, the sixth of the ten requirements, is: "Thou shalt not kill;" or, "Thou shalt do no murder." Here is a great deal more than an ordinance forbidding the striking down to death of a fellow-man. ”

“ Among the varied forms of primitive covenanting, perhaps none is more widely known and honored, or less understood, the world over, than a covenant of salt, or a salt covenant. Religion and superstition, civilization and barbarism, alike deal with it as a bond or rite, yet without making clear the reasons for its use. The precise significance and symbolism of salt as the nexus of a lasting covenant is by no means generally understood or clearly defined by even scholars and scientists. The subject is certainly one worthy of careful consideration and study. ”

“ In our estimate of the Decalogue we have made too much of the law element, and too little of the element of love. As a consequence it has not been easy for us to see how it is that God's law is love, and that love is the fulfilling of God's law. But the Ten Commandments are a simple record of God's loving covenant with his people, and they are not the arbitrary commandings of God to his subjects. ”

“ Indeed, they have it for a proverb among Arabs and Syrians, "My bread had no salt in it," as a mode of accounting for any act of treachery, or failure in fidelity toward one who was a partaker of the bread of hospitality.
In the famous Oriental story of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," the captain of the robber band who had visited Ali Baba in order to murder him was unwilling to partake of any food which had salt in it. This carefulness it was that excited the suspicion of Morgiana, the faithful slave girl, and led her to ask, "Who is he that eateth [only] meat wherein is no salt?" ”

“ If a stranger who meets with them in the desert, or comes to a camp, or before he departs from a city, can oppose this alliance to their rapacity, his baggage and his life are more safe, even in the midst of the desert, than during the first days of his journey with the securities of twenty hostages. The Arab with whom he has eaten bread and salt, and all the Arabs of his tribe, consider him as their countryman and brother. ”

“ And, indeed, the very idea of other gods is an outgrowth of man's sense of an unfitness to be in oneness of life with the One God,—in consequence of which man seeks a lower divinity than the supreme God as the immediate object of his worship.
The second requirement in this covenant of union is, that no material image or representation of this covenanting God shall be made use of as a help to his worship by his covenanting people; that, as a Spirit, God shall be worshiped in spirit by his people. Here, again, is no arbitrary mandate, but only the recognition of a vital truth. ”

“ In tradition and in history men have covenanted with God, or with their gods, so that they could claim and bear the divine name as their own, thus sharing and representing the divine personality and power. [8] Thus also in tradition different gods of primitive peoples and times have covenanted with one another, so that each was the other, and the two were the same. [9]
There are seeming traces of this root idea of covenanting, through making two one by merging the life of each in a common life, in words that make "union" out of "one." In the Welsh un is "one;" uno is "to unite." ”

“ But as the soul, which is our diviner part, connects the limbs of animals, and keeps the composure from dissolution; thus salt applied to dead bodies, and imitating the work of the soul, stops those parts that were falling to corruption, binds and confines them, and so makes them keep their union and agreement with one another. ”

“ The pledged or merged personality of the two covenantors fully accounts for the different suggested references of the variously employed words.
True marriage is thus a covenant, instead of an arrangement. The twain become no longer two, but one; each is given to the other; their separate identity is lost in their common life. A ring, a bracelet, a band, has been from time immemorial the symbol and pledge of such an indissoluble union. ”

“ This idea it is that runs through the whole system of what is popularly known as "blood revenge" in the East. "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man," [278] was the declaration of God as early as the days of Noah; and it is in the line of that declaration that any man in the East who sheds another's blood must surrender his own blood to the other's family, at the present day—as ever since the days of Noah. Not personal revenge, but divine equity, is the real basis of this system. ”

“ One kind of these conventions is made by their putting some grains of salt with pieces of bread into each other's mouths, saying, 'By the rite of bread and salt,' or, 'By this salt and bread, I will not betray thee.' No oath is added; for the more sacred an oath appears to be, the more easily does an Arab violate it. ”

“ Pliny, who, while not an original thinker, was a faithful and industrious collater of the sayings and doings of his contemporaries, and those who had gone before him, especially in the realm of material things, summed up the popular beliefs as to salt and its uses in the declaration that there is nothing better for the human body, in health or in sickness, than salt and sun, "sale et sole." ”

“ The line between sacrificial offerings and offerings for the purpose of exorcising evil spirits, or of propitiating good spirits, is not always a clear line even in the mind of the offerer; but there are uses of salt among primitive peoples which must be placed under the head of exorcisms and divinations, and as an accompaniment of incantations, rather than under the head of sacrifices, even though they may be only perversions of the original idea of sacrifice. ”

“ The idea of a "living," or a support of life, is in the word "salary." And so when we say that a man is "not worth his salt," we mean that he is not worth his living.
Salt has been employed as money at various times [Pg 69] and in various lands, and thus has been the means of supporting life. It has been so in Tibet and in India, and in the heart of Africa along from the sixth to the nineteenth centuries of our era. Thus even in lands where gold is abundant but less valued than salt. ”

“ Not because the life belongs to the man, but because it belongs to God, must it be guarded sacredly, and be accounted for—if taken away.
It is on this principle that the civil magistrate, as the messenger of God, takes the life of one who has taken another's life, in these days of the Christian dispensation. "He beareth not the sword in vain: for he is a minister of God, an avenger for wrath to him that doeth evil." [279] A child of God must count sacred every life which God has given; and except while acting as a specific messenger of God, he must never send back a human life to God. ”

“ It has been shown by experiment that many of the lower animals, as well as man, are dependent for their life on salt in their blood. "When an animal is fed with a diet as far as possible free from salts, but otherwise sufficient, it dies of salts-hunger. The blood first loses inorganic material, then the organs. The total loss is very small in proportion to the quantity still retained in the body; but it is sufficient to cause the death of a pigeon in three weeks, and of a dog in six, with marked symptoms of muscular and nervous weakness." ”

“ In the Bible, God speaks to men by means of [Pg 19] human language; and in the figures of speech which he employs he makes use of terms which had and have a well-known significance among men. His employment of the term "covenant of salt" as implying permanency and unchangeableness to a degree unknown to men, except in a covenant of blood as a covenant of very life, is of unmistakable significance.
There are indeed incidental references, in another place in the Old Testament, to the prevailing primitive idea that salt-sharing is covenant-making. ”

“ So it is that God makes it a part of his loving covenant between himself and his people, that ever and always they shall worship him statedly, as well as worship him sincerely, spiritually, and solely; because without this stated recognition of the covenant, the covenant itself would be forgotten.
And now we come to the fifth of the ten covenant requirements: "Honor thy father and thy mother." This also is in the affirmative form, and for a very good reason. God is here declaring, as it were, that those who are in legitimate authority are so far his representatives. ”

“ As at birth, so at death, salt seems to stand in primitive thought for blood, or life, in washing or anointing, in the hope of supplying the special lack or need of the individual. Among the cannibals of Borneo, on the death of a rajah or chief, the desire seems to be to restore him to life if it be possible. ”

“ Every form of sacrifice, Jewish, Egyptian, Assyrian, or ethnic, is in its primal thought either an evidence and a reminder of an existing covenant between the offerer and the Deity approached, or an appeal and an outreaching for a covenant to be consummated. ”

“ Union with God must be sincere and unfeigned; for only by a complete and willing surrender of one's [Pg 172] self can one's self be merged into a holy and infinite Personality. The loving worship of God must have its stated times, and hence, of course, its stated places, in order to have its fitting hold on the worshiper; and the recognition of this truth in the covenant is the authorization of all legitimate seasons and methods of worship. God's representatives in the family, in the State, and in the Church, are to be honored as God's representatives ”

“ Even the spilling of salt, which is so dreaded in primitive thought, may, it is said, be rendered harmless if the person who was guilty of the mishap will carefully gather up the spilled salt with the blade of a knife, and throw it over his left shoulder, with an appropriate invocation. [253]
It is deemed dangerous to give away salt to a stranger; for because salt is as blood and as life, one must be careful lest he put his blood and his life in the power of an enemy. [254] Salt is essential to the preservation of human life ”

“ A covenant involves the idea of a twofold agreement between the parties making it. Even though God himself be one of the parties, he will not refuse to be explicit in his words of covenanting. And so we find it to be in the record on the tables of the covenant which were given to Moses at Mount Sinai. We call the opening words of that record the "Preface to the Ten Commandments;" but they are more properly God's covenanting words with his people. "I am Jehovah thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." ”

“ It is a common practice in the East to welcome an honored guest to one's house by sacrificing an animal at the doorway, and letting its blood pour out on the threshold, to be stepped over by the guest, as a mode of adoption, or of covenant-making. [56] When such a guest comes unexpectedly, and there is not time to obtain an animal for the welcoming sacrifice, it is customary to take salt and strew it in lieu of blood on the threshold,—salt being thus recognized as the equivalent, or as a representative, of blood. ”