Today we come to the end of our overview of some of the ingredients Bible women had and used, based on stories and recipes from my book A Sampler of Bible Beauty. Maybe you’ve tried one or two of the recipes over the past several weeks. Perhaps you’ve reached out to someone impacted by the COVID19 pandemic, and likely you’ve felt the impact as well.
The final ingredients we’re looking at is salt. Salt is an important addition, not just for flavoring, but for curing foods. Salt was such an important commodity in the ancient world that it was used as a form of currency. Areas with salt deposits became wealthy. Excavations at places like Halstatt in Austria have had salt mines for millennia. Many scholars think that the earliest miners were Celts. Although Roman writers portrayed the Celtic peoples as barbarian, archeology has determined that they, in fact, had a very sophisticated society.
Infants were rubbed with salt
when they were born as noted in Ezekiel 16:4.
As for your nativity, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor
were you washed in water to cleanse you; you were not rubbed with salt
nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. The prophet is comparing Jerusalem to a
child who was not treated in this way because she was illegitimate.
Conquerors sometimes devastated
an area by plowing in salt so that nothing would grow. This is mentioned in
Judges 9:45 when Abimelech fought against
the city all that day; he took the city and killed the people who were in it;
and he demolished the city and sowed it with salt.
Animals and humans need salt in
their diet. Perhaps women noticed animals licking at certain spots and began to
collect some of the salt to use when they were not close to a salt lick. Salt
was, of course, used as flavoring. Job asks Can flavorless food be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the white of an egg? (Job 6:6) Fish and
other meat were preserved by layering in salt. Meat layered in salt dried more
quickly than when it was just left to air dry.
Salt is a synonym for wisdom, too. Jesus notes, Salt is good, but if the salt loses its flavor, how will you season it? (Mark
When Jesus talks about saltiness, he isn’t just talking about flavoring, he is talking about the stone used under the fire to keep it hot (something I learned just recently!). A salt block in the fire retained the heat, just like we are supposed to retain and share the love of God.
In the Gospels Jesus adds, Have salt in yourselves, and have peace with
one another. Commentators note that this conversation
follows after Jesus tells his disciples some of the costs of following him. In
Mark, he talks about cutting off an offending body part (Mark 8:42-48) rather
than going to the fires of hell. In Luke, he urges followers to count the cost
and not be like the builder who couldn’t finish, or the king going to war (Luke
14:25-33)
What do these warnings, and the call to be salt say to you in this time
when it can feel like all stability has been rocked and shaken off the
foundations?
If we are to be, as Jesus says,
the salt of the world, what can we do during this COVID-tide (a phrase coined
by Bishop Mark VanKoevering of the Diocese of Lexington) to be salt in the
world?
Just for fun, you might want to try one of these recipes. Perhaps you can gift them to someone—being careful to social distance!
Deborah’s Salt Glow
2 tablespoons table salt
1 tablespoon oil
Mix into a paste, massage into face and neck. Avoid sensitive or irritated areas. Rinse in a warm (not hot) water. You can also use this on rough parts of your body like elbows.
Peninnah’s Easy Pickles
A fast fresh pickle can be made by marinating beet or cucumber slices in vinegar, salt and seasonings a couple hours or overnight.
More recipes and stories of women of the Bible are found in A Sampler of Bible Beauty by CynthiaDavis. Next Sunday is Pentecost. During the season of Pentecost, we'll be considering Ecclesiastes 3--the famous citation about 'a time for everything'.
