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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
offer = heave up as a heave offering. See note on Exo_29:27.
covenant of salt. Hebrew covenant = berith, from barah. to cut; hence, to eat. As salt was scarce and precious. and used with all eating, so it was put, by Figure of speech Metonymy (of Adjunct), App-6, for eating, just as the breaking of bread was. See Isa_58:7 (Authorized Version "deal"); Jer_16:7 (Authorized Version "tear"). Lam_4:4. Eze_18:7 (Authorized Version "given"). Hence, when wages were paid in kind, by finding the worker in food, "salt" was put (by Figure of speech Metonymy) for wages generally; so that a worker was spoken of as being worth, or not worth, his "salt". "A covenant of salt" was therefore a covenant made by sacrifice, which was first cut in two (Gen_15:10-18. Jer_34:18, Jer_34:19) and then eaten, thus solemnizing an inviolable covenant.