Statue of Salt

STATUE of Salt. The Scripture tells us, that Lot’s Wife was changed into a Statue of Salt. See LOT. Many Questions have been started about this Metamorphosis of Lot’s Wife into a Statue or Pillar of Salt; and many Hypotheses have been made, to explain the Words of Moses in a plain and literal manner. His Text only tells us, that Lot’s Wife look’d behind her, and became a Pillar of Salt. Some a explain it thus: She became without Motion, like a Statue of Salt. Others; She dy’d with Grief in the same Place, and there remain’d upright like a Statue. Salt is a Symbol of Hardness and Incorruptibility: Otherwise; She continued as a Statue in that Country of Salt, in the Land of Sodom, which was a Country of Nitre and Salt. But these Explications seem to be a little too violent.

The Antients were of Opinion, that Lot’s Wife thinking to walk very softly, was suddenly changed into a Statue of Metalline and solid Salt, such as are to be seen in some Mountains of Hungary, Poland, and Moscovy; that she still preserved the Shape of a Woman; and tho’ Travellers often carry’d away Pieces of her, to satisfy their Curiosity, yet the Statue did not diminish, nor did it lose any thing of its Bigness¹. Irenæus² and Tertullian³ add, that she was still subject to such Infirmities as were incident to her Age.

Dicitur & vivens alio sub corpore sexûs, Munificos solito dispungere sanguine menses.

Josephus assures us,⁴ that he had seen this Statue; and the Chaldee Paraphrasts of Jerusalem, and Jonathan the Son of Uziel, say, that she will continue there to the End of the World. Several Travellers tell us, that they have seen it; and it is a common and popular Opinion, that she still continues there near the Dead-sea.

Others pretend,⁵ that the Text of Moses may be explain’d, by saying, that the Fire that fell upon Sodom, and which inflamed the whole Country round about, having, by its Activity, prepared Passages for the Particles of Salt, or Nitre, in the Parts of the Body of this Woman, consolidated it, and in some measure imparted their Essence to it, and render’d her like a Pillar of Salt. Such Changes are not without Example. Aventine⁶, in the Annals of the Bavarians relates, that above fifty Peasants that were employ’d in milking their Cows, were infected by a poisonous Air at the Time of an Earthquake, and were changed into Statues which were like Salt. There are many Instances of such Changes⁷.

In our Commentary upon Genesis we have proposed some Conjectures about the Manner in which this might be effected. We have observed, that the Places about the Dead-sea and Arabia Petræa, had a particular Quality of Petrification; that solid Bodies, that continued there for any Time, might easily be petrify’d; that the Egyptians had Bodies that were embalmed and made stiff as any Statues, which might have been call’d Statues of Salt, or salted Statues. Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus make use of the Word Salting or Pickling, when they speak of the Embalment of those Bodies we call Mummies. Thus Moses might say, that Lot’s Wife having fall’n down upon the Ground, she there soon became like a salted or embalmed Statue. See the Commentary upon Genesis xix. 26.

Statue of Nebuchadnezzar; or rather, the Statue that Nebuchadnezzar saw in his Dream,⁸ which was very large and terrible to look at: Its Head was of Gold, its Breast and its Arms of Silver, the Belly and Thighs of Brass, the Legs of Iron, and the Feet partly of Iron and partly of Clay. Daniel’s Explication was, that the Empire of Nebuchadnezzar, that is, of the Chaldeans, was represented by the Head of Gold; the Empire of the Persians, founded by Cyrus, was represented by the Breast and Arms of Silver; the Empire of the Grecians, founded by Alexander the Great, was insinuated by the Belly and Thighs of Brass: The Empire of the Romans was denoted by the Legs of Iron; or rather, this Empire being divided into two, is that of the Seleucidæ in Syria, and of the Lagidæ in Egypt. The Attempts that the Kings of Egypt and Syria made, to unite their Interests by Intermarriages, not succeeding, are represented by the Feet, being partly of Iron, and partly of Clay. The little Stone that comes from the Mountain, and which overturns the Statue, is the Empire of the Romans, under which appear’d that of the Messiah, which⁹ saw the Fall of the Colossus, erected by the Arms of the Romans.

The same Nebuchadnezzar caus’d a Golden Statue to be set up, of sixty Cubits high, and six Cubits thick: He erected this in the Province of Dura in Babylon,¹⁰ and publish’d a Decree to all his Subjects, that they should fall down before this Statue, when they should hear the Sound of the musical Instruments, under the Penalty of being thrown alive into a burning Furnace. Daniel and his Companions not obeying this Decree, were cast into the Furnace; but God deliver’d them from it by a Miracle. See DANIEL.

‘Tis enquired, what this Statue was, and what it represented? Some think it to be a Statue of Nebuchadnezzar himself; others, that of his Father, whom he had a mind to deify: But to us it seems most probable, that it was the Statue of the God Bel, to whom he would have a particular Worship paid, at the time of the playing of the Instruments: And, in effect, he did not complain of Daniel, for refusing to worship him, nor his Father, but his Gods: Vere ne Sidrach, Misael, & Abednago, Deos meos non colitis, & statuam auream non adoratis?

Some Difficulties are form’d about the Proportions of this Statue: Some think it to be a Pillar upon which a Statue was placed, and that Daniel sets down the Height of the Pillar and Statue together, making it to be sixty Cubits high, and six in Thickness. ‘Tis imagin’d the Statue might be forty Cubits high, and six thick; and that the Base might be twenty Cubits high, and thick in Proportion. They even Diodor. Sicul. Bibloth. l.2.go so far as to say, this Statue is the same as that described by Diodorus Siculus, which was forty Foot high, and stood in the Temple of Belus: It was of Gold, like that described by Daniel; it represented the chief Deity of the Babylonians; it was worship’d in the most august of all their Temples. The Proportion of a Statue of forty Cubits high, is six Cubits wide, or thick; for the general Stature of a Man, is four times and an half the Breadth from Shoulder to Shoulder. But four times and an half six Cubits make twenty-seven Cubits, or forty Feet and an half: And this falls in very near with the Measure of Diodorus Siculus.

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