Salt, as a gift, or as an appeal, from the government supply, was sent to every native house. Four pecks of salt to every two males in the house was the average amount. The salt was laid, by a government official, upon the threshold of the house, early in the morning, before the inmates arose. Of course, any person stepping over that salted threshold was brought anew into a covenant with the giver.[236] Later in the day Egyptian soldiers called at every house to receive what the inmates would give in return. The appeal was irresistible. It was not like an ordinary tax, to be evaded or resisted if possible. All would do what they could. The least that any could think of returning was the usual price of the salt. Those who could afford more were glad to show their fidelity and loyalty in a corresponding liberality.[237]
XIV
A SAVOR OF LIFE OR OF DEATH
That which is a means of life in one instance may be a means of death in another. A breath that might kindle a tiny spark into a living blaze might also extinguish a quivering flame. The breeze that gives life to fire in one case gives death to fire in the other. And fire itself proves death to that which is perishable, while it gives added value to that which is purified in the furnace flames. Salt, like fire, is a symbol both of life and of death. In different connections it is a preserver and a destroyer. "To the one a savor from death unto death; to the other a savor from life unto life."[238]
Salt is spoken of in the Bible as destructive of vegetable life, and a barrier against new animal life. A piece of ground sown or strewed with salt is deemed dead land: "It is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein."[239] When Abimelech captured Shechem, "he beat down the city and sowed it with salt."[240] The Psalmist, speaking of the power and ways of God, declares:
"He turneth rivers into a wilderness,
And watersprings into a thirsty ground;
A fruitful land into a salt desert,
For the wickedness of them that dwell therein."[241]
The prophet Jeremiah says of one who departs from God's service that he "shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited."[242] Ezekiel, foretelling a curse on the land of the Jews, says: "The marshes thereof shall not be healed; they shall be given up to salt."[243] And Zephaniah declares that Moab shall become "a possession of nettles, and salt-pits, and a perpetual desolation."[244] Because there can be no fertility for new vegetable life, there is no room or hope for new animal life for land thus sown with salt and thus permanently sterile.