There are several covenants mentioned in the Bible, each built upon the foundation of the one before beginning with the Salt Covenant.
Salt Covenant
Dr. H. Clay Trumbull describes the significance of a Salt Covenant in Bible days, as being like a contract that could never be broken…never-ending and unchangeable. This was a custom worldwide centuries ago and is still just as seriously entered into now in some parts of the world. Take for instance this story written by John Macgregor, who was taken prisoner by the Arabs while on the upper Jordan in his canoe, the “Rob Roy.” These are his own words as he relayed the story of a salt covenant taken from the book he wrote, The Rob Roy on the Jordan, Nile, Red Sea & Gennesareth.
“No one had as yet offered me any food. This gross neglect (never without meaning among the Arabs) I determined now to expose, and so to test their real intentions. My cuisine was soon rigged up for cooking, and I asked for cold water. In two minutes afterwards the brave little lamp was steaming away at high pressure with its merry hissing sound. Every one came to see this. I cut thin slices of the preserved beef soup, and, while they were boiling, I opened my salt-cellar. This is a snuff-box, and from it I offered a pinch to the Sheikh. He had never before seen salt so white, and
therefore, thinking it was sugar, he willingly took some from my hand and put it to his tongue. Instantly I ate up the rest of the salt, and with a loud, laughing shout, I administered to the astonished outwitted sheikh a manifest thump on the back. “ What is it?” all asked from him. “Is it sukker? (sugar)” He answered demurely, “ La ! meleh !” (No, it’s salt !) Even his Home Secretary laughed at his chief. We had now eaten salt together, and in his own tent, and so he was bound by the strongest tie, and he knew it.”
The Arabs then not only freed MacGregor, but escorted him safely on his way.
