CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Mark 9:42-47. Offend.—Lay a trap for. See on chap. Mark 6:3.
Mark 9:42. It is better for him.—A happy thing it is for him rather. Cp. 1 Corinthians 9:15.
Mark 9:44; Mark 9:46. Probably spurious.
Mark 9:47. Hell fire.—The Gehenna. “The Ravine of Hinnom,” also called “Topheth” (2 Kings 23:10; Isaiah 30:33), is described in Joshua 18:16 as on the south of Mount Zion. Total length a mile and a half. A deep retired glen, shut in by rugged cliffs, bleak mountain-sides rising over all. Scene of barbarous rites of Molech and Chemosh in times of Ahaz and Manasseh (2 Kings 16:3; 2 Chronicles 28:3; Jeremiah 7:31); in consequence of which it was polluted by Josiah (2 Kings 23:10; 2 Kings 23:13-14); from which time it seems to have become the common cesspool of the city. These inhuman rites and subsequent ceremonial defilements caused the later Jews to regard it with horror and detestation, and they applied the name given to the valley to the place of torment.—G. F. Maclear, D. D.
Mark 9:48. Quoted from Isaiah 66:24. The words are not to be taken to mean more here than they do there.
Mark 9:49. Salted with fire.—Explanatory of the words immediately preceding. Either here on earth, or else hereafter in the Gehenna, all the impurities and imperfections of our fallen nature must be burnt out by the cleansing fires of discipline and chastisement, in order that we may become an acceptable sacrifice unto God. Salted with salt.—It is Divine grace alone—and not in any sense our own merits—that makes us “a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice.” This second clause of Mark 9:49 is probably an early marginal gloss.
Mark 9:50. Here there seems to be a transition of thought from the Divine Source to the human receptacles of grace. Our Lord is speaking to “the twelve” (Mark 9:35), whom He has already styled, as His disciples, “the salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13). He now warns them against the tendency to factiousness and self-seeking, which, if indulged, will thwart all their efforts to purify the world. And then He winds up, “Entertain among yourselves the spiritual salt of self-repression and self-discipline, and be at peace with one another.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Mark 9:42-50
(PARALLEL:Matthew 18:6-9.)
Mark 9:42-48. Offences.—“The law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” It seems as though the contrast was suggested. I think it was. But men make a tremendous mistake if they imagine that gentleness means weakness, or that only in obtrusive terribleness comes a revelation of strength. The speech of Jesus is the mightiest utterance the world has ever heard. The law of life and love, the call to righteousness which He delivered, is the most awfully soul-searching, all-encompassing, fiery word which has ever reached the listening ears and beating hearts of men. The only salvation worth the having is a salvation unto God. A purpose which alone satisfies Him as being worthy of the Infinite Father is to renew His own image in His children, and make us like unto Himself.
I. Christian life is a thorough consecration.—Anything less than this turns religion into a dismal burden. But this makes its face to shine with the very glory of God, and its power comes to us as an uplifting joy, a thrilling inspiration; thy whole self, body, mind, heart, soul, hallowed, consecrated, dedicated. What do you think of it? This is to be, this is the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ. High, great, difficult, beyond our capacity. Yes, and therefore comes the salvation from the everlasting, Almighty One. He is able and He is patient. What He begins He can complete. Our world of weak, erring, human life has known one Being who maintained a complete, supreme, unswerving consecration. He is the Saviour of men. He inbreathes His life; His mind, His spirit, may be in us. Men have felt His spell and realised His power. His promise has been so far known to be a great reality that it brought faith enough to a disciple to say, “We shall be like Him.”
II. Now it will be evident, if we pause to think, that, as the sphere of our being rises, dangers and hindrances will come, which lower down may not be so obtrusive. There can be no question as to desires, passions, activities, words, deeds, thoughts, which are wrong in themselves. The Christian has no business with them. The right eye, the right hand, are not wrong things. They are good faculties, good energies, which are a splendid gift for consecrated use. The advice of the fanatic or the coward is, “Destroy the sense, blind it, muffle it, for in it lies a danger”; and out of that have come all the austerities of the ascetic, all the inhumanity of the Stoic, but with no real redemption. The advice of the presumptuous fatalist is, “Withhold not thy heart from any joy; you are not responsible for your weakness or your passion”; and out of that have come the degradation of men, the fierce and terrible lines which sensual sin brands upon the sinner’s face. In the one extreme a man tries to have nothing to pray for; in the other he dares to pray for the working of a miracle in aid of wrong. We must avoid both presumption and distrust. Broadly speaking, I suppose the eye may stand for that which is beautiful, pleasurable, and the hand for that which is active and energetic; in a word, occupation and recreation, labour and luxury. These are wholesome, natural, essential, to our due being. Without them a man is manifestly maimed. But, says Jesus, it is better to be maimed than slain. The limb or the body, the organ or the whole self: can there be any question as to which? I have known men on what was said to be the way to fortune, who seemed to me to be stumbling on a footway like that outside Jerusalem, where the precipice overhung Gehenna. I have known men, said to be ruined, from whom God had mercifully cut away the peril of their soul.
III. But Jesus here, as always, lays His appeal upon conscience.—This alone would have made Him solitary among all leaders and teachers. He clears conscience from its shadow, and says, “Look to its light”—your own conscience, not another man’s. You have no business with the hands and eyes of others; you have great business with your own. Looking unto Jesus, you will not be led astray. Maintaining communion with Him, conscience will be lustrous and clear. Cling to Him, your Saviour. Obey His voice, your Lord.—D. J. Hamer.
Mark 9:50. The salt of Christian profession.—“Salt is good.” The wise son of Sirach says, “The principal things for the whole of a man’s life are water, fire, iron, and salt”; after which follow in their turn “flour of wheat, honey, milk and the blood of the grape, and oil, and clothing.” Amongst the good things of this present life—the natural productions which the Giver of all good has caused to exist for the use and benefit of His creatures—we may surely reckon a condiment so indispensable to health and enjoyment. Yes, “salt is good”; and it cannot lose its goodness or usefulness so long as it is salt.
I. In the symbolical language of Scripture, salt is applied in several ways, according to its various uses and properties.—
1. The first and most obvious of all is derived from its seasoning property. Salt makes savoury and palatable that which has no taste of its own (Job 6:6). Divine grace communicates a similar relish to everything in which it may be said to form an ingredient—to every part of the life and conversation of him who is under its influence, but especially to his familiar discourse. Hence the apostolic admonition (Colossians 4:6). And to this same seasoning virtue our Lord Himself alludes when He says to His disciples, “Ye are the salt of the earth”—as if all that is in the world were utterly tasteless and unpalatable in the judgment of truth until seasoned and as it were leavened with the holy doctrines and pure principles of Christianity. “But if the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season it?” What other more powerful or more salutary religion remains behind to renovate the enfeebled energies of a corrupt and degenerate Christianity?
2. This article entering so largely into the arrangements of the table, especially in the more simple forms of society, we need not be surprised to find it sometimes put for food in general. To “eat a person’s salt” carries with it among Eastern nations the same idea as with us “to eat a person’s bread,” i.e. to be in his domestic service or otherwise employed by him at a salary (a term which derived its origin from the Latin word for salt). See Ezra 4:14, text and margin. Hence also salt became a symbol of hospitality and friendship; and an Arab of the present day regards every one who has eaten salt with him as his sworn friend and brother, whom he is bound on all occasions to protect. Connected with this idea is the custom of eating a few grains of salt at the ratification of covenants. See Numbers 18:19; Leviticus 2:13.
3. But that which is ever so good in moderation and in its proper place may without those conditions be turned into the sorest of evils. “Salt is good”; but when it covers the whole face of the country, and the husbandman sees nothing around him but “brimstone and salt and burning” (Deuteronomy 29:23), this most useful commodity becomes another word for barrenness and desolation. See Jeremiah 17:6; Psalms 107:34, margin. To this head may probably be referred the custom of sowing salt (Judges 9:45) in a place which was intended to be devoted to perpetual desolation.
II. Whereas this substance is used to season others, we know of no other which can be made use of to impart a savour to salt.—Insipid salt may therefore be regarded as another name for whatever is useless and valueless, not in its own nature, but as being devoid of those very properties in which its excellence consists.
1. Salt that has lost its saltness may fitly represent a religious profession which does not influence the conduct. The profession of religion is good. It is good to see a man framing his life, arranging his habits, ordering his family, on the supposition that “God is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” It is good to see him entering into his closet, and shutting the door and praying to his Father which seeth in secret. It is good to see him coming forth from his private devotions, and summoning his family to join with him in domestic worship. It is good to see him and them in the Lord’s house on the Lord’s Day, and especially at the altar to receive the Sacrament of the Lord’s Body and Blood. All these things are good, for the same reason that salt is good—because of their aptitude to impregnate and season other things, all things, in fact, with which they are mixed up. This is the proper virtue and natural operation of a man’s religious profession; the whole life ought to taste of it. But, alas, how seldom is this so! How few are there amongst the multitude of professing Christians who in the common concerns of life think and speak and act differently from those who are openly living without God in the world!
2. Salt that has lost its saltness may also fitly represent a Christian who does no good to others. Just as the use of salt is to season not itself but other things which either have no savour of their own or an unpleasant one, so the use of Christianity is to season an ungodly and unbelieving world with the truths and principles of pure and undefiled religion. This can only be accomplished by the exertions of individual Christians, each seeking the good and promoting the eternal salvation of all who come within the circle of his influence. “This,” says Chrysostom, “is the definition of Christianity—to care for the salvation of others. Nothing is so frivolous and insipid as a Christian who does not save others.” And yet there are many who seem to understand that text, “Work out your own salvation,” in the same way as if they had been told to mind their own business and not to trouble themselves about the religious state of others. They do work out their own salvation, at least according to their views of the method of working it. They are zealous towards God, diligent in the performance of religious duties, strict moralists, and blameless in all the common duties and relations of life. Thus they may be said to “have salt in themselves.” But how do they realise that other and higher requirement, to be “the salt of the earth”? Where are their seasoning qualities? Wherein does such a man “please his neighbour for his good to edification”? Does he “command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord”? Does he seek the good of the city where he dwells, doing all in his power to discountenance wickedness and vice, and to season that locality with which he is more immediately connected, with the salt of true religion and virtue? Do his efforts reach forth beyond the narrow limits and petty concerns of a single locality? and does he cast in his mite of salt to the general stock which is employed in seasoning, converting, and evangelising the world?
3. What has been said of the duty of all Christians to seek the spiritual good of others applies in the highest degree to the priesthood of the Church. Insipid salt is but a feeble illustration of the character of a careless and unfaithful “minister of Christ and steward of the mysteries of God”—as to be “cast out and trodden underfoot of men” but faintly shadows forth his inevitable doom.
III. Improvement under religions advantages depends in a great measure upon ourselves.—“The Word preached,” be it ever so highly seasoned, will not profit unless it be “mixed with faith in them that hear it.” “Salt is good”; but there are some substances so utterly corrupt and stinking as to bid defiance to its correcting and preserving power. We Christian preachers are, according to St. Paul, “a sweet savour of Christ,” etc. (2 Corinthians 2:15-16). The salt is the same; its natural properties are the same; but, being applied to one, it preserves him from corruption and seasons him for the kingdom of heaven; while, being sprinkled on another, it salts him as a sacrifice to be offered up to the Divine vengeance, and makes him indestructible only for the worm that dieth not, and the fire that cannot be quenched, until the man’s heart is humbled to the dust and he cries aloud for mercy to the God whose grace he has heretofore spurned If therefore ye would escape the agonies of hell, “take heed what ye hear” and “how ye hear.” “Receive with meekness the engrafted Word,” etc. “Give no place to the devil,” who is ever watching his opportunity to “take away the Word out of your hearts,” etc. “Keep yourselves unspotted from the world,” which is always at hand with its contaminating influence, “the cares and riches and pleasures of this life,” to choke the Word and make it unfruitful. And finally, pray constantly to God to give you more and more of that “honest and good heart,” which “having heard the Word keeps it and brings forth fruit with patience.”
OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Mark 9:42-48. Self-control and self-denial.—The whole passage is steeped in metaphor. No one is expected to take the scandal or trap of Mark 9:42-43; Mark 9:45 literally, or the ass-millstone or the flinging into the sea, or the Gehenna.Why, then, should we insist on taking literally either the hand or the foot of these verses, or even the inextinguishable fire? The principle which underlies them is, that a man had far better part with, lose, sacrifice, anything and everything else, however good it may be in itself or however dear, than suffer himself to be hindered in that service of truth and goodness in which he finds his true life, or that fidelity to Christ in which eternal life consists. It is not by mutilating the body, but only by a wise and resolute self-control, a wise and resolute rule of our own spirit, that we can maintain our loyalty to Him, and walk with even and steadfast foot in His ways. And if we find that in ourselves which hinders or makes us stumble in these ways, He would have us know that, unless we freely renounce it, there is that both in the righteousness and in the love of God which will kindle on it like a fire, and burn it out of us; yes, and burn us until we let it go.—S. Cox, D.D.
Destruction of evil.—The point to which our Lord really directs our thoughts is, that all that is evil in us, however closely it sits to the heart, must be destroyed; that not only in a future world of woe—which we might just as truly depict as all millstone and sea, as all worm and fire—but here and now, as well as then and there, the righteousness and love of God will burn against all unrighteousness of men, burn more keenly and inwardly and consumingly than any fire; that all in us which exalts itself against Him or stands in the way of our own perfection, or militates against the welfare of the world, will infallibly expose us to a discipline more dreadful and agonising than metaphor can convey or imagination conceive. The severity is part of the goodness of God.—Ibid.
Something better than acrimony.—Instead of acrimony against those who follow not with us, let us bend all our anger and resentment, all our bitterness and hostility, against our own lusts and sinful propensities, not sparing one of them, though they be as dear to us as the members of our bodies, as our hands, our feet, or our eyes, and however painful the amputation or mortification of them may be to us.—C. Seymour.
Mark 9:42. Skandala.—When we learn that it was John’s repulse of the man who had cast out demons which set our Lord on this theme, a light is thrown on the particular meaning of the word “skandala,” which I think was in our Lord’s mind—that, viz., of the checking others on their way to good, the throwing back on itself of the enthusiasm or warm affection which was beginning to flow, and the choking up of the heartsprings thereby. The man who had been casting out demons and was turned back because he did not follow with the apostles might have asked, “Would the scribes and Pharisees have treated me worse?” The revulsion might deaden his spiritual life.—H. Latham.
Stumbling-blocks.—To go where we should not go, to do what we should not do, to touch what we should not touch with hand or eye, tongue or foot; is to set one of these traps in motion. To lie in wait on any honest path, to forbid or condemn any good action, movement, teaching, to hinder men, to trip them up, to hold them back, when they are bent on the service of truth or going on any errand of mercy, is to be such a trap: it is to scandalise or set them stumbling. Better to die, better even to be hanged, than to become a trap, a drag, in the service of truth and goodness: a defender of the faith, for example, who, honestly intending its defence, nevertheless opposes its growth, retards, or even blights, its springing and germinant powers. The most capable and eminent servants of the truth in all ages have had to waste half their strength in breaking through these traps and snares. Don’t you be one of these traps, or even the tongue of a trap.—S. Cox, D.D.
We offend Christ’s little ones every time we give them, in place of gospel bread, the stones of human philosophy; or, in place of the nourishment of simple faith in Christ, the sting of some abstraction about which sectaries quarrel.
Where in our Lord’s teachings do you find stronger words than these?—He never denounced murder or unchastity or malice of any kind in stronger terms, and the reason is not far to seek. He who deliberately puts the occasion of falling in the way of Christ’s little ones is really committing a heinous sin; it is murder and suicide combined, for while he injures the soul of him who is weak and helpless, he is really destroying all that is pure and Christlike in his own nature.
Mark 9:43-48. The awfulness of hell.—In this and other passages Christ speaks of hell in terms far more solemn and terrible than any other prophet or messenger of God has done. Why is this?
1. Because He is emphatically the teacher of God’s truth in its fullest form, without reservation or concealment.
2. Because He alone has perfect knowledge on the subject of the eternal world.
3. Because of His infinite love. He paints hell in all its awfulness, to induce men to flee from the wrath to come and to seek refuge in Him.
Precautions against evil.—What precautions do we not take to avoid an infectious air, and to prevent a contagious distemper from spreading? How much greater reason have we to shun those persons who are to us an occasion of sin, were they, on the account of their advice, protection, and assistance, as dear to us as our hands, our feet, and our eyes? How much more still ought we to cut off all criminal, unprofitable, and dangerous use of our senses, our mind, and our body?—P. Quesnel.
Mark 9:44. The worm of remorse.—Who can conceive the torment of this gnawing worm, namely, of the eternal reproach of conscience, when a man shall reflect upon the graces and mercies of God which he has despised, and on the preference he has made of the shadow of a momentary happiness, before a substantial and eternal good, which is God Himself?—Ibid.
Mark 9:45. The cutting off of the foot is the breaking off all commerce with the world by a holy retirement, whenever it becomes necessary to salvation. To quit the occasions of falling is not a counsel of perfection, but a necessary duty, since salvation depends upon it.—Ibid.
Mark 9:49. The true sacrificial fire of self-denial and self-mortification in relation to the fiery flame of hell.
1. The relation: all must be salted with fire.
2. The contrast: to be prepared for the fire by salt, or to be salted with fire.—J. P. Lange, D.D.
The two fires.—We cannot escape the fire; but we have the choice between the fire of life and the fire of death.—Ibid.
Learn—
1. Christians ought to be as spiritual sacrifices or oblations offered up to God in this life.
2. The ministry of the Word ought to be as salt to season men for God, and fit for His use and service.
3. As salt, being of a hot and dry nature, is apt to bite and fret the raw skin or flesh, so the Word of God, preached and applied to men’s consciences, is apt to cause pain and grief.—G. Petter.
Mark 9:50. Saltless salt.—Three times, in different connexions, this proverb is recorded in Christ’s teaching, in each case in reference to the failure of that which was excellent and hopeful. In St. Matthew it is applied generally to the influence of His new people on the world; in St. Mark to the danger to ourselves of the careless or selfish use of our personal influence; in St. Luke to the conditions of sincere discipleship. But in all cases it contemplates the possible failure of religion to do its perfect work.—Dean Church.
Deterioration.—There is such a thing as moral and spiritual decay—in standard, motive, devotion, sacrifice, goodness. What are the signs of it?
1. A lowered and attenuated ideal. Christ has little by little become almost a personal stranger. We have not consciously renounced Him, but have lagged so far behind in the journey that He is quite out of our sight and reach. 2. A growing indifference to all great enterprise for Christ.
3. A deepening indifference to truth for its own sake, though not infrequently accompanied with an augmenting fierceness of controversy and a spirit of partisanship in contending with those on the other side. Few forms of self-deceit are more treacherous or more hardening than that which thinks to contend for the truth without love.
4. Inconsistency in the use and enjoyment of what we understand by earthly and worldly things. To aim at both worlds is usually to end in enjoying neither.—Bishop Thorold.
True savour.—If we merely have the salt of good doctrine, without having the true savour and seasoning of personal godliness, we may become utterly worthless—like the waters of the “Dead Sea,” so called, whose waters receive a large quantity of salt, but which, by remaining stagnant, become so dense that nothing can live or grow in them.—S. Jenner.
Christians the salt of the earth.—It is for the best welfare of every nation and city on the face of the earth that the children of God should be in it, not merely for its spiritual welfare, but even that the blessing of God may descend upon it in earthly matters, the hand of God guiding and directing it. It is for the best interests both of this life and of the life to come that the children of God should pervade the earth from one end to another, and that the blessing of God should rest upon all men for their sakes. No doubt in the process of thus spreading through the earth the children of God may be persecuted and harassed and vexed; death may be their portion; their earthly goods may be spoiled at the hands of ungodly men; they may suffer for their faithfulness to Christ and to His cause. Are they not the liker to the salt which perishes in the very using, and is crushed into extinction simply by doing its work in the world? Let them be scattered abroad, therefore, come of them what may; and then, when the gospel shall have been preached in all the nations of the world, when there is something of this salt of the earth scattered everywhere, then we are told the end shall come, the world shall be ready for its blessing, ready for the presence of its God, ready to become the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.—A. Melvill, D.D.
Peace without, from purity within.—The meaning of the last clause in this verse is, that the strongest personal character is quite consistent with the gentlest Christian temper and behaviour. Christ intends to say, that His disciples not only may be calm and decided too; but that, if they are true ones, that is just what they will be.—S. Rickards.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 9
Mark 9:42. Wrong done to a child.—One of the most pathetic stories of the wrong done to children is, to my mind, that which a good man tells of his own childhood more than a hundred and fifty years ago. It was a Scotch Communion Sunday, and amidst the crowd who thronged to that solemn ordinance there came a boy of eight who managed to pass unnoticed into the church. He heard a part of the minister’s address, and tells us that he commended Christ in so sweet and delightful a manner that his heart was captivated. But just then a stern official caught sight of the young intruder, and indignantly bade him go out of the sanctuary, as though he had been some leprous Uzziah, instead of one of the lambs of Christ’s flock. The Church has not thought it worth while to preserve in grateful memory the name of that austere upholder of ecclesiastical discipline, but the boy he excommunicated lived to ennoble one of the commonest of common names, for he is known to us and to many as the saintly John Brown, of Haddington.
Mark 9:44. Future punishment.—Men in these times seem unwilling to hear of future punishment. They talk as if “a certain class of preachers” invented hell and kept it burning to enforce their precepts. I was in Naples in 1884, the year that cholera was epidemic. The Neapolitans accused the physicians of bringing the cholera. The physicians predicted it; they told the people that unless they cleaned up their city the scourge would come. They laid down rules and gave warning. So when the cholera came, the people thought the physicians brought it to intimidate them into washing themselves and keeping their back yards clean, so they threw stones at the physicians and drove them out of the city. These physicians had come to risk their lives for the ungrateful people who rejected them. Thus when preachers begin to talk of the scourge which will follow sin, the people—that is, some of them—begin to think the preachers are in some way responsible for this scourge. The preachers are assailed as cruel, fanatical, behind the times, and all that. Our Lord is a physician. He came and found the disease of sin and its fatal consequences here already. He did not bring them. He left His home to improve the sanitary condition of this world, to cleanse its filth. And in order to induce men to submit to His treatment, He warns them to flee from the wrath to come.—R. S. Barrett.
“Worm that dieth not.”—It has been discovered that there are worms which eat and live upon stone. Many such have been found in a freestone wall in Normandy. So there is a worm in hell—conscience—which lives upon the stony heart of the condemned sinners.
Hell in the present life.—A man may be in hell here as well as hereafter. No more striking illustration can be supplied than that of Lady Macbeth. After the murder of Banquo she cannot rest. She rises from her bed and walks about. She rubs and rubs, as if washing her hands, and continues it for a quarter of an hour. She fancies she sees a spot of blood on them. She cannot take it out; her hands will not be clean, and she cries, “Here’s the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh! oh! oh!”
Mark 9:47. Danger prevented.—A blind man was once asked whether he had no desire that his sight should be restored to him; he answered boldly, “No; because Jesus says, ‘If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.’ God probably saw that mine eyes would offend me, so as to endanger my soul, and so He has prevented this great evil by plucking them out Himself; and I thank Him for it.”
Mark 9:50. Salt losing its savour.—A merchant of Sidon, having farmed of the government the revenue from the importation of salt, brought over an immense quantity from the marshes of Cyprus—enough, in fact, to supply the whole province for at least twenty years. This he transferred to the mountains, to cheat the government out of some small percentage. Sixty-five houses were rented and filled with salt. These houses had merely earthrn floors, and the salt next the ground in a few years entirely spoiled. I saw large quantities of it literally thrown into the street, to be trodden underfoot of men and beasts. It was “good for nothing.”—Wm. Thomson, D.D.
Salt and peace.—Every one who has sojourned in the East has some story to tell of the sacredness attached by Arabs to a compact which has been ratified by salt; how the man who one day would have plundered you of all will the next day sacrifice everything he values, if need be, if in the meantime you have tasted his salt. Some think that in this verse our Lord refers to this well-known fact. An unseemly quarrel had taken place amongst His disciples: “What was it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way? But they held their peace; for by the way they had disputed among themselves who should be greatest.” The very children of the desert teach the disciples a lesson. They had been brought “into the bond of the covenant”; they had eaten of the “king’s salt”; had been “salted with the salt of the palace” (Ezra 4:14). How can they dispute who are bound by the most solemn obligations to perpetual amity and love?