The Covenant of Salt / As Based on the Significance and Symbolism of Salt in Primitive Thought

by H. Clay Trumbull

And now we come to the fifth of the ten covenant requirements: "Honor thy father and thy mother." This also is in the affirmative form, and for a very good reason. God is here declaring, as it were, that those who are in legitimate authority are so far his representatives. He wants it understood that while no other gods are in existence, even in a subordinate place in the universe, he has his representatives in various spheres of human government and rule, and they are to be honored accordingly by his covenant people.

We are accustomed to speak of the division of the Ten Commandments into two tables, the first comprising four requirements, and the second six; but it will be seen that this fifth requirement belongs with the preceding four in the group of those which look God-ward. It is as though the one table pointed upward from ourselves, while the other pointed outward. We are to honor those who are over us in the Lord, not as our fellows, but as our superiors; not because of what they are as men, but because they are, within the scope of their rule, the representatives of our God.

By Oriental custom the terms "father" and "mother" are by no means limited to one's natural parents, but are applicable to superiors in years, or in wisdom, or in civil or religious station. This truth was impressed on my mind by an incident in my journey across the desert of Sinai. My companions in travel were two young men, neither of them a relative of mine,—as my dragoman very well knew. When, however, in mid-desert, we met an old Arab shaykh, through whose territory we were to pass, my dragoman introduced me as the father of these young men. "No, they are not my sons," I said to the dragoman; but his answer was: "That's all right. Somebody must be father here." And when I found that, according to the Arab idea, every party of travelers must have a leader, and that the leader of a party was called its "father," I saw that it would look better for me to be called the father of the young men, than for one of them to be called my father.

Traces of this idea are found in the Bible use of the term "father." In Genesis, Jabal is said to be "the father of such as dwell in tents, and have cattle;"[273] the man who started the long line of nomad shepherds. Jubal is called "the father of all such as handle the harp and pipe;"[274] the pioneer instrumental musician of our race. Joseph in Egypt speaks of himself as "a father to Pharaoh,"[275] in view of the confidence reposed in him by the ruler of the empire. "Be unto me a father and a priest,"[276] says Micah to the young Levite, in the days of the Judges; because a religious guide is, in the East, counted as in a peculiar sense a representative of God.

It is not merely that the terms "father" and "mother" may include others besides human parents, but it is that no Oriental would think of limiting those terms to that relationship. Hence this fifth requirement of the covenant of God's people with their God, just as it stands, is in substance: Honor those who are over you in the Lord, as the representatives of the Lord; for the powers that be are ordained of God,[277] and he who fails to honor them lacks in due honor to him who has deputed them to speak and to act for himself. And herein is affirmed a principle which is as important to us to-day as it was to the Israelites in the days of Moses. Indeed, it may be questioned whether any precept of the ten covenant requirements has a more specific bearing on the peculiar needs of the American people, than this injunction to reverence those who are in authority because they are God's representatives in their sphere. Anarchy can have no tolerance in the mind of a child of God; but reverence for rightful authority has its home there.

Turning from the first table of the covenant with its upward look, to the second table with its outward look, we find that each new requirement in its order stands for a great principle which is applicable alike to all peoples and to all times, and which has its basis in man's loving union with God. The first of this series, the sixth of the ten requirements, is: "Thou shalt not kill;" or, "Thou shalt do no murder." Here is a great deal more than an ordinance forbidding the striking down to death of a fellow-man. Here is a call of God to guard sacredly the life of every child of God, as that which is dear to God. In the Oriental world, as in the primitive world generally, blood stands for life, and life is supposed to proceed from God and to return to God. When, therefore, an Oriental is told that he must not take it upon himself to shed another's blood, he realizes that that prohibition is equivalent to saying that it is not for him to decide when a life that God has given shall be recalled to God.

This idea it is that runs through the whole system of what is popularly known as "blood revenge" in the East. "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man,"[278] was the declaration of God as early as the days of Noah; and it is in the line of that declaration that any man in the East who sheds another's blood must surrender his own blood to the other's family, at the present day—as ever since the days of Noah. Not personal revenge, but divine equity, is the real basis of this system. Not because the life belongs to the man, but because it belongs to God, must it be guarded sacredly, and be accounted for—if taken away.

It is on this principle that the civil magistrate, as the messenger of God, takes the life of one who has taken another's life, in these days of the Christian dispensation. "He beareth not the sword in vain: for he is a minister of God, an avenger for wrath to him that doeth evil."[279] A child of God must count sacred every life which God has given; and except while acting as a specific messenger of God, he must never send back a human life to God.

The seventh covenanting requirement is a call to regard the family institution as an institution of God's appointing, and to refrain from aught that tends to its injury. "Thou shalt not commit adultery" means a great deal more than Refrain from unchastity because of its harm to yourself or to your neighbor. It means, Guard God's primal institution for man, as an institution which God holds dear. At the very beginning of the race, it was ordained of God that one man and one woman—the twain, not the three, or the four, but the twain—should be one flesh in loving union.[280] This institution of God's ordaining is dear to God, and it ought to be dear to every child of his; therefore God says to those who would be in loving compact with him, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." Because your and my interests are made one, you must not, you cannot, as my loving people, do aught that shall prove injurious to the family—to the institution which I have established, and which is dear to my heart.