Judges 9:45
45 And Abimelech fought against the city all that day; and he took the city, and slew the people that was therein, and beat down the city, and sowed it with salt.
Jdg. 9:45. The end of sowing the place with salt was not to make it barren, for it was a city not a field that is spoken of. But this action seems to have been used in those days as symbolical to signify the curse of being perpetually desolate. It was an open solemn declaration that they devoted the place thus sowed with salt to everlasting desolation and emptiness. Probably it came to be thus used from what was observed of the providence of God with respect to Sodom and the cities and country round about, that were effectually devoted to perpetual desolation by being covered with the Dead Sea.