Job 6:6 Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg? Salt gives a zest to many unpalatable things, and is an invaluable condiment. The health, the digestion, the entire well-being of man, demand its use. The patriarch is alluding to those matters which give zest to life, even as salt gives zest to food. Some things axe pleasant enough to eat, and require nothing wherewith to be seasoned. Sugar is sweet in itself. So there are some occupations and pleasures of life which need nothing to render them enjoyable. But there are other things which, like unsavoury or tasteless food, demand some addition to give them a zest or make them more pleasant to perform. A few examples will make the meaning plain: — I. TAKE A MOTHER AND HER BABE. If we look at her disinterestedly, we shall see what a vast amount of unpleasant labour she must undergo. No toil is too great, no work too exhausting, no effort too repulsive. In itself such patience or self-denial would be considered an intolerable hardship. But when the unsavoury morsel is taken with the salt of love, how sweet to the taste does it become! What would otherwise be a painful labour is turned into a delightful joy. II. TAKE A MAN AND HIS BUSINESS. What is business but a toil — a painful, bitter, wearisome contest, rising early and toiling late? It is One of the unsavoury things to which the words of the patriarch may allude. To swallow it for its own sake alone would cause a good many to make a very wry face. And what is the salt of business? Why, it is money and gain. What a zest these impart to the hardest labour and the early toil! How sweetly goes down the hardship when the clinking coins are counted from the till at night. III. TAKE THE TOILING STUDENT. How hard he labours over his midnight lamp! Amusement is forsworn, pleasures and relaxation are given up. But the flavour improves when eaten with the salt of ambition or the desire of honour. Then the toil is transformed into a pleasure and the trouble into a labour of love. IV. SO ALSO WE MAY TAKE THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER. Who can say that the Christian life is pleasant in itself? It is humiliation, sorrow, bitterness, disappointment. It means an apparently unavailing contest with powers that are more powerful than ourselves. But once flavour the Christian life with salt, and how different it becomes! Flavour the bitterness with the love of God, the blessed sympathy of Christ, the glorious reward beyond, and then as the golden sunshine gilds and beautifies the most rugged scene, so the bitterness is turned into a sheen of glory and the toil is forgotten. (J. J. S. Bird.) Parallel Verses KJV: Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg?WEB: Can that which has no flavor be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the white of an egg? |
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