Judges 9:45

sowed it with salt Usually explained as a symbolic act shewing that A. had reduced the city to a salt, uninhabitable desert; cf. Deuteronomy 29:23; Jeremiah 17:6; Psalms 107:34; Job 39:6. More probably the strewing of salt had a religious significance (cf. Ezekiel 43:24) and denoted the sacrificial consecration of the city which, to judge from its utter destruction, had been put under the ban to Jehovah (see on Judges 1:17); Rel. of Sem., p. 435 n.The custom is mentioned only here in the O.T.; but it is referred to in the great historical inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser I (circ.1100 b.c.) and Ashurbanipal (668 626 b.c.); Keilinschr. Biblioth.i. p. 37 and ii. p. 207 1 [42]. There is a tradition that Attila treated Padua, and Frederick Barbarossa treated Milan, in this way. Early in 1828 Ibrahim Pasha, after blowing up and burning Tripolitza, sprinkled salt over the ruins 1 [43].

[42] The transl. -stones" and -dry sand" given here is to be corrected to -salt"; Zimmern in Gunkel. Genesis, p. 193.

[43] K. Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Gesch. Griechenlands, ii. p. 99. This reference is due to Prof. J. E. B. Mayor.