Don’t you know that the Lord, the God of Israel, has given the kingship of Israel to David and his descendants forever by a covenant of salt? [2 Chronicles 13:5 (NIV)]
Eighteen years after the kingdom divided and Jeroboam became king of the northern kingdom of Israel, Rehoboam’s son Abijah became king of Judah, the southern kingdom. As Solomon’s grandson and David’s great-grandson, Abijah was part of David’s dynasty; Jeroboam was not. Although 1 Kings called Abijah a sinner, 2 Chronicles recorded the one highpoint of his short reign. War broke out between Israel and Judah and Judah’s warriors were outnumbered two to one. As the two kings squared off, Abijah shouted out to Jeroboam and his army. Referring to the “covenant of salt” between God and David, Abijah called Jeroboam a traitor, his men scoundrels, and charged Israel with rebellion against the Lord’s chosen Davidic dynasty of kings. Their rebellion hadn’t been against Solomon or Rehoboam; they’d rebelled against the kingdom of the Lord! Continuing with his tirade, Abijah charged the northern kingdom with apostasy because of their idolatry and illegitimate priests. After pointing to Judah’s faithful worship, he warned Israel they would not succeed because God was with Judah. Indeed, in spite of overwhelming odds, Scripture tells us “God routed Jeroboam and all Israel” and the Judeans were victorious because they “relied on the Lord, the God of their ancestors.”
I was curious about the “covenant of salt” mentioned by Abijah. The Hebrew word for covenant was berith which meant a pledge, treaty, alliance, or agreement between two or more parties. Personal covenants were made between people, political ones between nations, legal ones within a nation, and sacred ones between God and people. There usually were conditions that needed to be upheld for the covenants to remain in effect. The Old Testament records God’s covenants with Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. The covenant to which Abijah referred was God’s promise that David’s line would have a kingdom and his royal dynasty would last forever. This one verse in Chronicles, however, is the only mention of that being a “covenant of salt.”
Maybe no detailed explanation of a covenant of salt was needed simply because salt, as a symbol of permanence and perpetuity, was part of covenant making throughout the ancient world. Along with its mention in Hebrew scripture, evidence has been found that the Babylonians, Persians, Arabs, and Greeks all used salt in the context of an agreement or covenant. When used in conjunction with the sealing of treaties and covenants, it symbolized a lasting agreement. Parties commonly shared a meal featuring salted meat when establishing a treaty and it was understood that people who shared salt were united by mutual obligations. An ancient letter from the Neo-Babylonian/Chaldean Empire refers to a tribe’s covenantal allies as those who “tasted the salt of the Jakin tribe.” When Ezra wrote of being “under obligation” to the Persian king, a literal translation of the verse explains their commitment was because “we have salted with the salt of the palace.” [4:14] Today, some Arabs continue to seal a pact of friendship with a gift of salt.
A “covenant of salt” signified an everlasting covenant or agreement that was sealed or ratified with salt. When Abijah spoke of the covenant of salt, he was asserting God’s unswerving faithfulness to the Davidic covenant—a covenant that was to last for perpetuity. There was, however, one more covenant—the new covenant prophesized by Jeremiah and fulfilled in Jesus. Rather than a covenant of works, it is one of grace—one of forgiveness, new hearts, and the indwelling Spirit! This was the new covenant of which Jesus spoke during that last supper—quite likely at a meal where people shared salt as well as bread and wine.
When talking with my husband about the story of Jonah, he said that the fish story was a “little too hard to swallow”— too incredible to believe. Miracles! The Bible is full of them and, since they are supernatural events, they’re all hard to accept as true. Improbability is the nature of miracles. Along with the fish saving Jonah, the story is filled with other miracles: the immediate calming of the storm once Jonah was thrown in the sea, the deliverance of the prophet from the fish safely onto the beach, Nineveh’s immediate repentance, the appointment of the plant, worm and scorching east wind as teaching tools, and even God’s revelation of Himself directly to Jonah! Yet, if we believe the Bible is God-breathed and without error, we don’t have the privilege of picking and choosing which miracles we will believe and which ones we won’t. We have only one choice to make—all or none!
When I came across this revised version of the 23rd Psalm, I was sure it was written by a cynic as a way of mocking God, Christianity, and many of today’s popular evangelists. Imagine my surprise when I learned that it was written in all seriousness by Charles Fillmore, the founder of Unity, a church within the New Thought movement. The “revised” psalm was published in Fillmore’s book Prosperity in 1938. Although we may associate the beginnings of prosperity or “health and wealth” theology with televangelists like Jimmy Swaggart and Jim and Tammy Bakker in the 1970s, the movement began in the late 19th century. Sadly, in one form or another, it still is preached today.
My husband loves to watch the chefs on Food Network but watching food being prepared on television doesn’t fill his empty stomach any more than just seeing his bottle will quiet a hungry baby. I could show you photos of the tulips and daffodils in Holland’s Keukenhof Gardens but that wouldn’t give you the experience of walking among hundreds of thousands of blooming flowers and smelling their fragrant aroma. You could tell me all about your children and even show me their pictures and, while I’d know about them and even recognize them, I wouldn’t know them until we met face to face and spent time together. Before I had my first child, I attended birthing classes and read all about labor and childbirth but nothing I learned came anywhere near to approximating the actual event! It’s been thrilling watching the Olympic athletes compete in the bobsled and monobob events, but watching from my sofa doesn’t come close to actually riding a sled down an icy track at more than 80-mph, dropping 384 feet in less than a mile while negotiating 16 turns, and feeling forces five times the pull of gravity on one’s body! Second-hand information is fine as far as it goes, but it never equals the genuine experience.
Back in 2008, my husband and I joined others from our church to see Fireproof, a movie by Alex and Stephen Kendrick. It was about Caleb Holt, a firefighter, who’s urged by a friend and his father to hold off on getting the divorce to which he and his wife have agreed. Counseling him to fight for his crumbling marriage, his father gives him a Christian self-help book called The Love Dare and urges him to go on its forty-day challenge. Having nothing to do with the game “Truth or Dare,” the book dares Caleb to improve his marriage, not by changing his wife, but by changing the way he treats her. After completing the forty day challenge, Caleb continues changing his behavior and he and his wife eventually reconcile. As I remember, the movie ends with them renewing their marriage vows. Several months after seeing the movie, I spotted The Love Dare book while browsing through a bookstore. Whether the movie gave birth to the book or the book gave birth to the movie, I don’t know. In any case, I purchased it and, without my husband knowing, took on its 40-day challenge.
