Luke 14:35 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill. — The illustration, differing as it does from that in Matthew 5:13 and Mark 9:50, proves the independence of the saying as here recorded. A new use of salt, distinct from that of preserving food, or its symbolic meaning in sacrifice, is brought before us, and becomes the ground-work of a new parable. The use is obviously a lower and humbler one than the others. The salt serves, mingling with the dung-hill, to manure and prepare the ground for the reception of the seed. Bear this in mind, and the interpretation of the parable, connected, as it thus is, with that of the Fig-tree (see Note on Luke 13:8), is obvious. A corrupt church cannot even exercise an influence for good over the secular life of the nation which it represents. The religious man whose religion has become an hypocrisy cannot even be a good citizen, or help others forward in the duties of their active life by teaching or example. The church and the individual man are alike fit only to be “cast out” — to become, i.e., a by-word and proverb of reproach. Our Lord’s sense, if we may so speak, of the depth and fulness of the meaning of His words, is shown by His emphatic reproduction of the words that had accompanied His first parable, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”