Lot’s Wife - Her Life And Times

Lot’s Wife - Her Life And Times

SALT

Not much of a legacy, is it? Lot’s wife is remembered less for who she was — wife, mother, daughter, sister — than for what she became — a pillar of salt. Just one irresistible but forbidden glance back at what was happening behind her, and she turned into salt. Salt! One of the world’s most common, and most used, chemicals.

Palestine, in fact, possessed rich salt depositories, which accounted for such place names as the Salt Sea (also known as the Dead Sea), the Valley of Salt, and the City of Salt. The Romans probably looked on Israel as a worthy conquest simply because of the salt available there.

The Hebrews used salt to season food: “Is tasteless food eaten without salt?” (Job 6:6). Hebrew women rubbed their newborn babies with salt or washed them in it: “On the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you rubbed with salt” (Ezekiel 16:4). Salt was a required supplement to any Old Testament grain sacrifice: “Season all your grain offerings with salt” (Leviticus 2:13).

The word salt is used several times in the New Testament, all of them symbolic. Jesus tells us to remember that as believers we are the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13; cf. Mark 9:50; Luke 14:34). Our attitudes and actions can cleanse and season and purify our surroundings. When we respond graciously to someone who is ungracious, we season our world with salt. When we treat an irritable child with kindness, we season our homes with salt. When we comfort the hurting, console the lonely, encourage the discouraged, or calm the unsettled, we season our world with salt. As followers of Christ, we’re saltshakers (we hope full ones!), busy sprinkling our world with the salt that flavors life.