Matius 5:13

Salt and Light

5:13 “You are the salt ¹  of the earth. But if salt loses its flavor, ²  how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled on by people.

Matius 6:30

6:30 And if this is how God clothes the wild grass, ³  which is here today and tomorrow is tossed into the fire to heat the oven, ⁴  won’t he clothe you even more, ⁵  you people of little faith?

Matius 7:11

7:11 If you then, although you are evil, ⁶  know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts ⁷  to those who ask him!

Matius 18:19

18:19 Again, I tell you the truth, ⁸  if two of you on earth agree about whatever you ask, my Father in heaven will do it for you. ⁹ 

Matius 22:24

22:24 “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and father children ¹⁰  for his brother.’ ¹¹ 

Matius 26:24

26:24 The Son of Man will go as it is written about him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would be better for him if he had never been born.”

¹ sn Salt was used as seasoning or fertilizer (BDAG 41 s.v. ἅλας a), or as a preservative. If salt ceased to be useful, it was thrown away. With this illustration Jesus warned about a disciple who ceased to follow him.

² sn The difficulty of this saying is understanding how salt could lose its flavor since its chemical properties cannot change. It is thus often assumed that Jesus was referring to chemically impure salt, perhaps a natural salt which, when exposed to the elements, had all the genuine salt leached out, leaving only the sediment or impurities behind. Others have suggested that the background of the saying is the use of salt blocks by Arab bakers to line the floor of their ovens; under the intense heat these blocks would eventually crystallize and undergo a change in chemical composition, finally being thrown out as unserviceable. A saying in the Talmud (b. Bekhorot 8b) attributed to R. Joshua ben Chananja (ca. a.d. 90), when asked the question “When salt loses its flavor, how can it be made salty again?” is said to have replied, “By salting it with the afterbirth of a mule.” He was then asked, “Then does the mule (being sterile) bear young?” to which he replied: “Can salt lose its flavor?” The point appears to be that both are impossible. The saying, while admittedly late, suggests that culturally the loss of flavor by salt was regarded as an impossibility. Genuine salt can never lose its flavor. In this case the saying by Jesus here may be similar to Matt 19:24, where it is likewise impossible for the camel to go through the eye of a sewing needle.

³ tn Grk “grass of the field.”

⁴ tn Grk “into the oven.” The expanded translation “into the fire to heat the oven” has been used to avoid misunderstanding; most items put into modern ovens are put there to be baked, not burned.

sn The oven was most likely a rounded clay oven used for baking bread, which was heated by burning wood and dried grass.

⁵ sn The phrase even more is a typical form of rabbinic argumentation, from the lesser to the greater. If God cares for the little things, surely he will care for the more important things.

⁶ tn The participle ὄντες (ontes) has been translated concessively.

⁷ sn The provision of the good gifts is probably a reference to the wisdom and guidance supplied in response to repeated requests. The teaching as a whole stresses not that we get everything we want, but that God gives the good that we need.

⁸ tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”

⁹ tn Grk “if two of you…agree about whatever they ask, it will be done for them by my Father who is in heaven.” The passive construction has been translated as an active one in keeping with contemporary English style, and the pronouns, which change from second person plural to third person plural in the Greek text, have been consistently translated as second person plural.

¹⁰ tn Grk “and raise up seed,” an idiom for fathering children (L&N 23.59).

¹¹ sn A quotation from Deut 25:5. This practice is called levirate marriage (see also Ruth 4:1-12; Mishnah, m. Yevamot; Josephus, Ant. 4.8.23 [4.254-256]). The levirate law is described in Deut 25:5-10. The brother of a man who died without a son had an obligation to marry his brother’s widow. This served several purposes: It provided for the widow in a society where a widow with no children to care for her would be reduced to begging, and it preserved the name of the deceased, who would be regarded as the legal father of the first son produced from that marriage.