Justice in a later poem in Isaiah 49, we get a speech from the servant who repeats all these images, God has called me from the womb to be his servant. The servant says later on, God told me I will make you a light to the nations, so that my salvation “salvation is the word Yeshua, it’s Jesus Hebrew name,” that my Yeshua can reach to the ends of the earth and God says again, I will make you a covenant of the people. All this comes together in a set of poems at the end of the book of Isaiah chapter 60, rise up, shine, because your light has come. God’s addressing the people who are inhabiting this new exalted Jerusalem. The glory of Yahweh has risen upon you, look, darkness covers the land, this is like the pre-creation state of Genesis chapter 1. Deep darkness covers the people, but Yahweh will rise upon you, his glory will appear over you and nations will come to your light.
Now God is addressing a people who have been restored by the servant, God’s light will shine on them, so that the nations will come to the light and then later in Isaiah chapter 60, the nations will come around you bringing their grateful offerings to help rebuild and restore Israel that was destroyed by the nations and Isaiah 60:14, it says, they will bow down and call you the city of the Lord, Zion of the Holy One of Israel. This is a whole story line in Isaiah, the light of the world, the city on the hill. Isaiah was very meaningful to Jesus and Jesus used the language of Isaiah to explain who he was and what he was doing. Jesus’ opening words here, you are the light of the world, you are the city set up on a hill that’s not able to be hidden and then he gets into this little joke, if you have a candle, no one puts it under a basket, it’s meant to shine, so everyone can see.
Then Jesus flips it, he says, let your light shine before humans so they can see, but you think what he’s going to say is see your light, but then what he says is they can see good deeds or your good works or your justice. Jesus is tying the pieces together of the city on the hill and the light of the nations from Isaiah. Jesus alluded to the good works in the nine sayings of a good life, but also he’s setting us up for his discussion about how his teaching fulfill, what he calls the Torah and Prophets. Clearly Jesus is drawing on this bundle of ideas, God called Israel to be a light to the nations, to live by his instructions in a way that brings peace and justice. Israel has failed at that, but God promised through the prophet Isaiah, that he’d raise up a servant, who would fulfill that calling and invite a renewed Israel into their heritage and that’s what Jesus is claiming right here with these very dense little parables of the light and the city on the hill.
Preservative, probably the most universal use of salt, but also connected to keeping us alive, because it preserved food for long periods of time. The idea of salt, it’s what makes things endure a really long time, salt is a symbol of God’s long enduring covenant with Israel and so every sacrifice gets salted. The covenant is a long-lasting covenant and so salt preserves things, so to call it the salt of the covenant is to emphasize its longingness. God says that all of Israel’s gifts, Numbers 18:19, are to be salted and God says it is an everlasting covenant of salt with you and your descendants. They’re long-lasting nature of the covenant and of salt, are bundled together in one phrase. God’s covenant promise to David, that he would have a descend that ruled forever, is called a covenant of salt. The covenant is at the center of all of this and all these other meanings of salt still have a lot of meaning and implication, but now their meaning comes from the fact that the covenant is at the center.
Salt was a means of washing things clean or purifying them. The idea that moral compromise of choosing selfishness, greed, these are things that make us metaphorically impure, unclean, dirty. Whereas being clean, washed, pure, these are states of being, that are associated with life and healthy relationships and connection with God. An element of meals are part of creating social bonds and relationships, what is the covenant, except a relationship between God and humans. For Jesus to call his followers the salt of the land, whoever is receiving the Kingdom that he’s bringing from heaven to earth to fulfill God’s covenant promises to Israel, we are the salt. Then look at his little riddle, if salt loses the thing that it is, it’s like dirt to get stepped on by humans. Israel lost their saltiness, because getting trampled by the nations is a metaphor in the prophets for their defeat at the hands of Assyria and Babylon and then exile. Jesus is saying, continue faithfully to be his ambassadors, his heralds, his salt and light in the world, be who we are and stop being something that we’re not, we are the embodiment of the covenant through which God’s long-lasting promises to his people are going to move forward, we are the light of the world, we are the city on the hill. It’s a dark world out their, we’re shining a light through how we live together as a group of people.
Now God is addressing a people who have been restored by the servant, God’s light will shine on them, so that the nations will come to the light and then later in Isaiah chapter 60, the nations will come around you bringing their grateful offerings to help rebuild and restore Israel that was destroyed by the nations and Isaiah 60:14, it says, they will bow down and call you the city of the Lord, Zion of the Holy One of Israel. This is a whole story line in Isaiah, the light of the world, the city on the hill. Isaiah was very meaningful to Jesus and Jesus used the language of Isaiah to explain who he was and what he was doing. Jesus’ opening words here, you are the light of the world, you are the city set up on a hill that’s not able to be hidden and then he gets into this little joke, if you have a candle, no one puts it under a basket, it’s meant to shine, so everyone can see.
Then Jesus flips it, he says, let your light shine before humans so they can see, but you think what he’s going to say is see your light, but then what he says is they can see good deeds or your good works or your justice. Jesus is tying the pieces together of the city on the hill and the light of the nations from Isaiah. Jesus alluded to the good works in the nine sayings of a good life, but also he’s setting us up for his discussion about how his teaching fulfill, what he calls the Torah and Prophets. Clearly Jesus is drawing on this bundle of ideas, God called Israel to be a light to the nations, to live by his instructions in a way that brings peace and justice. Israel has failed at that, but God promised through the prophet Isaiah, that he’d raise up a servant, who would fulfill that calling and invite a renewed Israel into their heritage and that’s what Jesus is claiming right here with these very dense little parables of the light and the city on the hill.
Preservative, probably the most universal use of salt, but also connected to keeping us alive, because it preserved food for long periods of time. The idea of salt, it’s what makes things endure a really long time, salt is a symbol of God’s long enduring covenant with Israel and so every sacrifice gets salted. The covenant is a long-lasting covenant and so salt preserves things, so to call it the salt of the covenant is to emphasize its longingness. God says that all of Israel’s gifts, Numbers 18:19, are to be salted and God says it is an everlasting covenant of salt with you and your descendants. They’re long-lasting nature of the covenant and of salt, are bundled together in one phrase. God’s covenant promise to David, that he would have a descend that ruled forever, is called a covenant of salt. The covenant is at the center of all of this and all these other meanings of salt still have a lot of meaning and implication, but now their meaning comes from the fact that the covenant is at the center.
Salt was a means of washing things clean or purifying them. The idea that moral compromise of choosing selfishness, greed, these are things that make us metaphorically impure, unclean, dirty. Whereas being clean, washed, pure, these are states of being, that are associated with life and healthy relationships and connection with God. An element of meals are part of creating social bonds and relationships, what is the covenant, except a relationship between God and humans. For Jesus to call his followers the salt of the land, whoever is receiving the Kingdom that he’s bringing from heaven to earth to fulfill God’s covenant promises to Israel, we are the salt. Then look at his little riddle, if salt loses the thing that it is, it’s like dirt to get stepped on by humans. Israel lost their saltiness, because getting trampled by the nations is a metaphor in the prophets for their defeat at the hands of Assyria and Babylon and then exile. Jesus is saying, continue faithfully to be his ambassadors, his heralds, his salt and light in the world, be who we are and stop being something that we’re not, we are the embodiment of the covenant through which God’s long-lasting promises to his people are going to move forward, we are the light of the world, we are the city on the hill. It’s a dark world out their, we’re shining a light through how we live together as a group of people.
