Everyone I know keeps salt on their table or kitchen counter. Fine salt, course salt, flaky salt—all varieties. In our cabinets I see Pink Himalayan in a grinder, course Mediterranean sea salt, pickling salt, and regular table salt. All used for various aspects of cooking, seasoning, flavoring and preserving.

God called for the inclusion of salt in offerings made by the priests of Israel. Season all your grain offerings with salt. Do not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain offerings; add salt to all your offerings.

Salt served as a symbol of God’s covenant with Israel. Through the requirement of adding salt to sacrifices, the Lord created a daily reminder for his chosen people of his commitment to their relationship. I appreciate what this commentator wrote about this idea of covenant and our relationships today:

Covenant is a form of committed relationship. The facets of the covenants can be instructive to us as we think about the relationships in our own lives (including our relationships with God). How will we make them endure? Will they have impact beyond our own lifetimes? What intimate activities seal and reseal our commitments—especially during a time when physical proximity is limited? How can we keep them in balance and thereby harness their power instead of being consumed by it?

During these days when physical proximity is limited, I appreciate reminders to maintain close relationships with friends and family, to invest in covenant commitments with the Lord and others.

The continual use of salt from antiquity to today sparks my modern imagination. Reaching for the salt transforms into a sacred moment to consider my relationships, and how I should take active measures to strengthen them.

Leviticus 2 in reading the Bible in 2023

Photo by Faran Raufi