StrongerBible

halas

ἅλας

GreekG0217“salt”

Appears 8 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 5:13 (2×)Mrk 9:50 (3×)Luk 14:34 (2×)Col 4:6
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradeHAH-lahsnoun

What halas means

salt: the everyday mineral used to season and preserve food, and a rich image for what preserves, purifies, binds, and lasts.

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled

In the New Testament this word never strays far from the kitchen: at bottom it is the ordinary salt that flavors and preserves food. But salt in the ancient world carried meaning far beyond the table.

  • It sealed agreements (an offering was sprinkled with salt, and a lasting bond was called a covenant of salt)
  • it purified sacrifices
  • it stood for wit and grace in conversation
  • in the wrong hands it was scattered over a conquered city to curse its ground into barrenness

When Jesus and Paul call people or their words salt, they draw on that whole web of associations at once.

That is why careful readers resist boiling the word down to a single idea. In one well-known list, the single phrase "you are the salt of the earth" has been given as many as eleven possible overtones. The point is not vagueness but economy: one vivid image that an ancient hearer would have felt on several levels together, depending on the setting.

The New Testament settings pull out different threads. Jesus tells his followers they are the salt of the earth, salt that must never lose what makes it salt. He tells them to have salt in themselves and be at peace with one another, tapping the old custom of sharing salt as a bond of friendship. Paul tells the Colossians to let their speech be seasoned with salt, gracious and wise toward outsiders. The mineral is the same everywhere; what changes is which of its qualities a passage brings forward.

Nuances

1asalt as the disciple's defining, enduring character and preserving presence in the world, the quality that must never be lost.
Mat 5:13 (2×)Mrk 9:50 (3×)Luk 14:34 (2×)
1bsalt as an inward quality among believers that keeps them at peace with one another.
Mrk 9:50 (3×)
1csalt as the seasoning of speech: words that are gracious, wise, and wholesome toward outsiders.
Col 4:6
Col 4:6

What it means for Christian speech to be seasoned with salt in Colossians 4:6.

  • majorityA combination of gracious or winsome, wise and apt, and wholesome (as against corrupt) speech; the dominant modern reading, which grants the pagan wit background but holds that Paul repurposes it for grace-shaped discourse ready to answer each outsider.; James D. G. Dunn, The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon (NIGTC, 1996); Peter T. O'Brien, Colossians, Philemon (WBC 44, 1982); Douglas J. Moo, The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon (Pillar, 2008)
  • minorityPrimarily wit and urbanity, an intellectual rather than a moral quality, on the model of the Greek and Latin use of salt for clever, pointed speech.; Charles J. Ellicott, A Critical and Grammatical Commentary on St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon; A. S. Peake, Colossians, in The Expositor's Greek Testament, vol. 3

What scholars say about halas

The lexical facts are uncontroversial. The classical masculine noun ἅλς gave way in Koine to the neuter τὸ ἅλας, a Hellenistic t-stem, which is the form used eight times in the New Testament (Matt 5:13; Mark 9:50; Luke 14:34; Col 4:6); the older ἁλς survives only in variant readings and in a few Septuagint books. The standard lexica (BDAG; Louw-Nida; LSJ; Moulton-Milligan) treat the substance-noun as unremarkable but note its metaphorical range. F. Hauck's TDNT article organizes the word around four fields: Greek hospitality and cultic use, Old Testament covenant, purification and curse, rabbinic wisdom symbolism, and New Testament discipleship. NIDNTTE (Silva) and Spicq foreground the Greek and Latin use of salt for wit in speech, the primary background to Col 4:6, where the pairing of grace (χάρις) with salt matches Plutarch's calling salt the graces because it makes food agreeable (Quaest. Conv. 5.10). The covenant-of-salt background (Lev 2:13; Num 18:19; 2 Chr 13:5) is set out by Milgrom and by Latham, whose monograph is the standard treatment of the subject. The live debates concern the sayings, not the meaning of the word: whether the earth in Matt 5:13 is the world or literally the soil (Deatrick and Gundry for the agricultural reading; France, Luz, Betz, and Keener against), what seasoned with salt asks of speech in Col 4:6 (Dunn, O'Brien, and Moo for a combined gracious, wise, and wholesome sense; Ellicott and Peake for wit), and what have salt in yourselves means in Mark 9:50 (covenant loyalty, wisdom, or the friendship-and-peace reading of Lattke and Latham). Davies-Allison, Luz, Marcus, and Latham all conclude that the New Testament usage is deliberately multivalent rather than reducible to one sense.

In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • BDAG (Bauer-Danker-Arndt-Gingrich), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, s.v. ἅλαςlexicon
  • J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, s.v. ἅλαςlexicon
  • LSJ (Liddell-Scott-Jones), A Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. ἅλςlexicon
  • Moulton-Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek New Testament, s.v. ἅλαςlexicon
  • F. Hauck, "ἅλας," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT) 1:228-229dictionary
  • Moisés Silva, ed., New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis (NIDNTTE), s.v. ἅλαςdictionary
  • Ceslas Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament (1994), s.v. ἅλαςdictionary
  • W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, Matthew 1-7 (ICC, 1988)commentary
  • Ulrich Luz, Matthew 1-7 (Hermeneia, 2007)commentary
  • R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew (NICNT, 2007)commentary
  • Joel Marcus, Mark 8-16 (Anchor Yale Bible 27A, 2009)commentary
  • James D. G. Dunn, The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon (NIGTC, 1996)commentary
  • Peter T. O'Brien, Colossians, Philemon (WBC 44, 1982)commentary
  • Douglas J. Moo, The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon (Pillar, 2008)commentary
  • Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16 (Anchor Bible 3, 1991)commentary
  • James E. Latham, The Religious Symbolism of Salt (Theologie historique 64, 1982)monograph
  • Eugene P. Deatrick, "Salt, Soil, Savior," Biblical Archaeologist 25 (1962): 41-48article
  • Wolfgang Nauck, "Salt as a Metaphor in Instructions for Discipleship," Studia Theologica 6 (1952): 165-178article
  • M. Lattke, "Salz der Freundschaft in Mc 9,50c," Zeitschrift fur die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 75 (1984): 44-59article
  • Donald Garlington, "'The Salt of the Earth' in Covenantal Perspective," JETS 54 (2011): 715-748article

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of ἅλας

nominative n s

ἅλας

Mat 5:13, Mat 5:13, Mrk 9:50, Mrk 9:50, Luk 14:34, Luk 14:34

accusative n s

ἅλα

Mrk 9:50

dative n s

ἅλατι

Col 4:6