The first twelve verses of chapter 5 are the Beatitudes. They answer the question Who is qualified to be admitted to the Church? —for the “kingdom of heaven” is, as we shall see, the way the Church is regularly designated hereafter. Those who are qualified for membership are “the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” —that is, they rate the kingdom. Likewise qualified are those that mourn and need comfort, and the meek who shall inherit the earth (that is, hereafter when the kingdom comes to its own). Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, who are eager to accept the message and be accepted—who else could be better qualified? Likewise deserving are the merciful who shall be paid in kind, the pure in heart, they alone whose confidence waxes strong in the presence of God (having no hidden vices to rankle the subconscious with guilt), those who are persecuted for being righteous, and finally those who are thoroughly unpopular in our present society; what they can hope for is “your reward in heaven” (Matthew 5:12 [Matt. 3:14]). Notice that these are all low-profile people, the same that Isaiah recommends for blessings, having the exact opposite of all the qualities that make for success in our present world.
In your King James Bible verse 13 is rightly marked as beginning a new section; the Lord is now addressing the disciples as the leaders of the Church. He addresses them as the salt of the earth, of which only a little is needed but is of prime significance; if they cannot function properly everything falls flat. It is the disciples, not the milling crowds that are the salt of the earth—one only needs a little, but it makes all the difference. Then in a new section, which is also marked beginning with verse 17, he reminds them that there is only one law and one gospel. He contrasts them with the leaders of the Jews, the scribes and Pharisees (v. 20). Then he gives them strict rules of behavior and emphasizes their high responsibility.
Salt, Light & the Law Fulfilled
Salt that can go flat, a lamp nobody lights in order to hide, a city that cannot be concealed, and then the claim the whole Sermon turns on: he has come not to abolish the law but to fill it full.
Tap a Gospel to show or hide its column. Narrow to any two to read them side by side.
Note. The JST changes “Ye are the salt of the earth” to “I give unto you to be the salt of the earth”: a conferral rather than a compliment. 3 Nephi 12:13 reads the same way, independently.
? How to read this edition
The reading is the Joseph Smith Translation, in the text of the Covenant Christian Edition, carried beside each Gospel and set against the King James baseline. Headers give both numbering systems: the CCE chapter and verse, and the traditional KJV reference.
13Ye are Truly, truly I say unto you, I give unto you to be the salt of the earth. But if the salt shall lose its savor, with what shall it the earth be salted? It is The salt shall be, from then on, good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden underfoot of men.
14Ye are Truly, truly I say unto you, I give unto you to be the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15Behold, do men light a candle and put it under a bushel? Nay, but on a candlestick, and it gives light to all that are in the house. 16Therefore, let your light so shine before this world, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in Heaven.
17Think not that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill; 18for truly I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, heaven and earth must pass away, but one jot or one tittle shall by no means pass from the law till all shall be fulfilled. 19Whoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments and shall teach men so to do, he shall be called the least by no means be saved in the kingdom of Heaven. But whoever shall do and teach them these commandments of the law until it shall be fulfilled, the same shall be called great and shall be saved in the kingdom of Heaven. 20For I say unto you, except your righteousness shall exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of Heaven.
13Verily, verily I say unto you, I give unto you to be the salt of the earth, but if the salt shall lose its savor, wherewith shall the earth be salted? The salt shall be thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden underfoot of men.
14Verily, verily I say unto you, I give unto you to be the light of this people. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. 15Behold, do men light a candle and put it under a bushel? Nay, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light to all that are in the house. 16Therefore, let your light so shine before this people, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in Heaven.
17Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill; 18for verily I say unto you, one jot nor one tittle hath not passed away from the law but in me it hath all been fulfilled.
19And behold, I have given unto you the law and the commandments of my Father, that ye shall believe in me, and that ye shall repent of your sins, and come unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. Behold, ye have the commandments before you and the law is fulfilled. 20Therefore, come unto me and be ye saved. For verily I say unto you that except ye shall keep my commandments which I have commanded you at this time, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of Heaven.
13In truth I tell you: I guide you to be the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its useful flavor, what will the earth be salted with? The salt will from then on be good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled by people’s feet.
14In truth I tell you: I guide you to be the light of this people. A city that’s built on a hill can’t be hidden. 15Ask yourself: do people light a lamp and hide it under a basket? No, they put it on a lampstand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16Therefore let your light shine in the same way before this people, so they can see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
17Don’t think I’ve come to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I didn’t come to destroy, but to fulfill. 18Truly I tell you: Not even the smallest part or requirement of the Law has gone unfulfilled, but in Me it has all been accomplished.
19And know this, I’ve given you the Law and the commandments of My Father, that everyone is to believe in Me, and all must repent of their sins, and come to Me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. Everyone has the commandments before them and the Law is accomplished. 20Therefore come to Me and everyone can be saved. For in truth I tell you that unless you obey My commandments which I’ve commanded you at this time, you’ll never enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Set to Be a Light: And What Happens If They Are Not
Joseph Smith almost never quotes the word “salt,” which is why a plain search misses him here. He works in allusion instead, and twice, in revelations given while the Saints were being driven out of Missouri, he applies this verse to the covenant people themselves. The reading is unsparing: the salt is not the world, it is the Church, and salt that goes flat is not reformed but discarded.
Accounted as the Salt of the Earth
D&C 101:39–41 (CCE T&C 101:7) · December 16–17, 1833 · scriptures.info ↗Given as the Saints were being expelled from Jackson County. The salt saying is turned directly on the covenant people, and the sentence that follows names what has actually happened to them.
When men are called unto my everlasting gospel, and covenant with an everlasting covenant, they are accounted as the salt of the earth and the savor of men. They are called to be the savior of men, therefore, if that salt of the earth lose its savor, behold, it is then on good for nothing, only to be cast out and trodden under the feet of men.
Behold, here is wisdom concerning the children of Zion — even many, but not all: they were found transgressors, therefore they must needs be chastened. He that exalts himself shall be abased, and he that abases himself shall be exalted.
Set to Be a Light unto the World
D&C 103:8–10 (CCE T&C 104:3) · February 24, 1834 · scriptures.info ↗Two months later, and this time both sayings are fused into one sentence: the light of verse 14 and the salt of verse 13, held together as a single condition.
But inasmuch as they keep not my commandments and hearken not to observe all my words, the kingdoms of the world shall prevail against them. For they were set to be a light unto the world, and to be the saviors of men, and inasmuch as they are not the saviors of men they are as salt that has lost its savor and is then on good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden under the feet of men.
Those That Cease to Be Saviours of Men
Preaching at Nauvoo on the gathering, Joseph Smith reached for the same figure, and the Joseph Smith Papers annotate this very sentence to Matthew 5:13 and to 3 Nephi 12:13, the two columns set side by side above.
Discourse, circa 19 July 1840, Nauvoo, as reported by Martha Jane Knowlton Coray (Words of Joseph Smith). The JSP dates it “circa 19 July” and notes it may have been delivered 9 or 15 July and misdated. · Joseph Smith Papers ↗…and build when they are comanded to do so cease to be Saviours of men and are thenceforth good for nothing but shall be cast out and trodden underfeet of men for their transgression as Reed Peck was when he aplied in the name of an apostate for buisness in a store in Quincy They told him that they wanted no apostates round them and showed him the door
… And I prophecy in the name of the Lord that the state of Illinois shall become a great and mighty mountain as [a] city set upon a hill that cannot be hid and a great [candle?] that giveth light to the world The city of Nauvoo als[o] shall become the Greatest city in the whole world—
A Tittle of Law Which Must Be Fulfilled
Three years later Joseph Smith took up verse 18 (“heaven and earth shall pass away”) and put it to a use no commentary would predict: if not one tittle of the law can pass until all is fulfilled, then the Levitical anointing fixed on Aaron and his sons still stood, and John the Baptist, Zacharias’ son, was its heir and the only legal administrator when Jesus came to be baptized.
Discourse, 23 July 1843, Nauvoo · Willard Richards, in Joseph Smith’s journal (cf. Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 318–319) · Joseph Smith Papers ↗Also recorded in Willard Richards’s report; JS’s journal.
Law & prop[h]ets. &c— suffereth violenc[e] & the viol[e]nt taketh it by force— heavens and earth shall pass away. &c says christ. he was the rock &c—— gave the law 30 Ex. 30.31.— and thou shalt anoint A[a]ron &c. last chap Ex 15.— and thou shalt anoint. them &c.— a tittle of law which must be fulfilled.— provend hereditary.— fixed on the head of aron— down to Zachariahe— the father of John.
Two provenance notes. The 1840 discourse survives in two Coray versions, the hurried original and a much later polished copy, and only the later one carries the city-on-a-hill prophecy; the “[candle?]” there is the JSP editors’ conjectural reading of a gap in the manuscript, not Joseph’s attested word, so it is shown with their brackets. And the 1843 sermon is read from Willard Richards’s notes: the fuller wording in Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith is a later Historian’s Office amalgamation that the Joseph Smith Papers do not carry (History E-1 leaves this sermon blank), so the reading follows the one record that names the tittle of the law, and the other two witnesses are given beside it. That sermon is also drawn on in “John the Baptist Testifies of Christ in the Wilderness,” for a different part of its argument.
The One Thing You Can Do with Spoiled Salt
Nibley reads verse 13 the way Joseph Smith did (the salt is the Church, not the world) and then presses the figure to the conclusion he thought the Reformation had missed. Salt, weeds, wolves: the Lord chose illustrations of things that cannot be repaired. His first passage is a rare thing in the corpus, a straight verse-by-verse walk through this exact section.
Could the church suddenly and easily slough off what had been completely assimilated into its very being for over a thousand years, to return again to what she had been before the great compromise with the world? Can one reconvert a petrified organism that has been transmuted from one substance to another through the centuries, molecule by molecule? Or, to use the figure employed by the Lord himself, when salt has lost its savor there is only one thing to do with it—throw it out (Matthew 5:13 [Matt. 3:15]). To corrupt the gospel is to lose it; the plan of salvation and the Church of Jesus Christ may not be changed without being lost and when lost may not be regained by any process of reformation… The Lord and the Apostles use the examples of the salt that is spoiled, the tares that destroy the wheat field until they can be burned, the wolves that destroy the flock, and the sheep that turn into wolves, precisely because weeds and wolves, briers, and salt that has lost its savor are things that can never be reformed: they are beyond saving.
Therefore watch, and remember that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears (Acts 20:29–31 [Acts 12:4], italics added).
Here we are told that apostolic guidance is to be withdrawn (cf. Galatians 4:18), that as a result the wolves will attack, and that the attack will be successful—the flock enjoys no immunity from such, even though “purchased with his own blood.”
Paul is warning the churches in no spirit of mild fatherly admonition; his is not the calm assurance of later church writers that the church of God cannot fail and all will be well: He knows differently—the salt can lose its savor and be thrown out (Luke 14:34 [Luke 9:10]). His alarms have gone on for years, night and day, and with tears: I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain (Galatians 4:11). . . . I stand in doubt of you (Galatians 4:20). . . . Have ye suffered so many things in vain? (Galatians 3:4) . . .
There are contentions among you. . . .
The third entry cites Luke 14:34, the parallel saying, rather than Matthew. Nibley has nothing on verses 14–16 or 19–20: his “light of the world” passages are all Johannine or Qumran, and his “law and the prophets” passages are all Matthew 22:40, so the salt is where he speaks and the rest is left to the other voices.
You Are the Light of the World: And the Lampstand Is the Menorah
Barker has nothing on the salt, but on the light she has something no ordinary commentary offers. The Greek word for the lampstand the lamp is set on, luchnia, is the same word used for the temple menorah. On her reading the disciples are not merely told to be conspicuous; they are being placed in the seven-branched lamp of the temple, as its light. Her third passage takes verse 18 somewhere stranger still: the saying was preserved precisely because scripture was being altered.
The seventy lights of the menorah, the children of the Lady in the wilderness, appear in the story of Jesus sending out 70 to proclaim the kingdom (Luke 10.1 [Luke 8:3], 9). Why 70? They had power over demons, serpents and scorpions, and when they returned to report their success, Jesus said that he had seen Satan fall from heaven (Luke 10.17- 19 [Luke 8:5]). He linked the number 70 to the fall of Satan recorded in Revelation, and Jesus saw his 70 as warriors against the dragon/snake with his 70 horns. They had power to ‘tread on’ serpents and scorpions and the power of Satan. There may have been others who saw themselves as these warriors, but St Luke shows that the followers of Jesus certainly saw themselves that way. They were the beams of light from the menorah, they were children of the light.
They were the light of the world. Jesus claimed this title for himself (John 8.12 [John 6:11-12]), when he was in the temple for the feast of Tabernacles, but he also gave it to all his followers (Matt.5.14 [Matt. 3:16]). The lights should not to be hidden, he said, but put on the lamp stand, luchnia. Had these lights been hidden away? And was this a reference to a particular lampstand, since the same Greek word was used for the menorah? Were the sons of light themselves a part of the menorah light? This would explain why the top lamps of our menorah are depicted as circles, in the same way as the 70 smaller circles that form the rest of the lampstand.
A menorah with 70 ornaments was not the form that Josephus knew in the temple. He came from a priestly family, and so could have entered the temple and seen the actual menorah in his time. His brief account implies that he had been into the temple: ‘the level part of the temple received those passing within…’ He said the menorah had seven lamps that represented the planets, but gave no more detail (War 5.5.5). Philo also said that they represented the stars (Questions on Exodus II.75-76, 104) or that they represented the planets (Life of Moses 2.21.1).
The menorah Josephus knew was depicted on the arch of Titus, one of the spoils of war taken to Rome in 70 CE, but that menorah had only 42 ornaments. Nevertheless, Josephus knew that the original menorah had 70 ornaments, although the accounts in Exodus do not give this number. Further, Josephus’s account does not mention the almond motifs on the Exodus menorah (Exod. 25.33-34; 37.20); he describes only globules and bowls, lilies and pomegranates.
This link between the holy oil and the tree of life is not clear in the Bible, but it is found in both Jewish and Christian writings.10 The oil was the sacrament of Wisdom. The Tree of Life was the symbol of Wisdom, and the heavenly oil flowed from Wisdom into the tree of life. This is why the Psalmist sang: ‘With thee is the fountain of life, and in thy light we shall see light.’ Moses anointed Aaron the high priest so that he was joined to the source of life and light, and it was the duty of the high priest to tend the lamp in the temple, to make sure that it was always burning.12 The anointed ones were themselves lights to their people. The hymns found among the Dead Sea Scrolls praise God who has appeared to his people as perfect light and has, through them, given light to others.13 Jesus gave the same teaching. He said ‘I am the light of the world,’14 and he also said to his disciples: ‘You are the light of the world’15. The oil gave light to the anointed, and they became lights in the world.
Christians had to discern between true and false Scripture in Jewish texts… “Therefore every man who wishes to be saved must become, as the Teacher said, a judge of the books written to try us. For he said: ‘Become experienced bankers’. Now the need for bankers arises when forgeries are mixed up with the genuine.”… It is possible that Jesus had known of changes in the text of Scripture; the Jewish Christian community, for whom this must have been a pressing concern, preserved the saying: “Not a dot or an iota shall pass away from the Law until all is fulfilled” (Mat. 5.18).
Context worth stating for the first entry: that exposition sits inside Barker’s argument that a hoard of Jordanian lead codices is ancient, a contested claim, and one her own corpus elsewhere documents as involving modern forgeries. The reading of Matthew 5:14–15 stands on its own and is quoted here without the conclusion it was written to support. Barker is a documented no-fit on the salt saying, on verse 17, and on verses 19–20.