Salt is counted as the equivalent of blood and of life, both in primitive thought and, in a sense, in scientific fact; therefore salt, like blood, has been deemed a nexus of a lasting covenant, as nothing can be which is not life or its equivalent. Only as two persons are sharers of a common life can they be supposed to have merged their separate identity in that dual union.
And so we find that, in the primitive world's thought, shared salt has preciousness and power because of what it represents and of what it symbolizes, as well as of what it is. Salt stands for and corresponds with, and it symbolizes, blood and life. As such it represents the supreme gift from the Supreme Giver. Because of this significance of salt, when made use of as the means of a lasting union, the Covenant of Salt, as a form or phase of the Blood Covenant, is a covenant fixed, permanent, and unchangeable, enduring forever.
SUPPLEMENT
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS AS A
COVENANT OF LOVE
All of us are familiar with the Ten Commandments, given from God on two tables, or tablets, of stone, to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai.[256] But not all of us are accustomed to think of these Ten Commandments as ten separate clauses of a loving covenant between God and his chosen people, recorded on stone tablets for their permanent preservation. Yet these witnessing tablets are repeatedly called in the Bible "the tables of the covenant,"[257] and "tables of testimony,"[258] not the tables of the commandments; while the chest or casket which contained them is called "the ark of the covenant,"[259] and "the ark of the testimony,"[260] not the ark of the commandments.
There is obviously a world-wide difference between a loving covenant that binds two parties to each other in mutual affection and fidelity, and a series of arbitrary commandments enjoined by a sovereign upon his subjects; between a compact of union, having its statement of promises on the one hand and of responsibilities on the other, and an instrument that asserts the rights of the ruler and defines the duties of the ruled. In our estimate of the Decalogue we have made too much of the law element, and too little of the element of love. As a consequence it has not been easy for us to see how it is that God's law is love, and that love is the fulfilling of God's law. But the Ten Commandments are a simple record of God's loving covenant with his people, and they are not the arbitrary commandings of God to his subjects. They indicate the inevitable limits within which God and his people can be in loving union, rather than declare the limits of dutiful obedience on the part of those who would be God's faithful subjects. A close examination of the Decalogue will show that this is its nature and scope.