ABSTRACT
The Sermon on the Mount turns its attention to the creation of a new covenant relationship between God and his people and it's happen after giving initial promises of ultimate blessings in the Beatitudes. The Sermon on the Mount abruptly begins its programmatic process by offering the people a special status, with a caution. A neo-Babylonian text uses the image of tasting salt to refer to one's covenantal allies. Loyalty to the Persian monarch is described as having tasted the salt of the palace. The expression ballein ex is semantically equivalent to ekballein, literally to throw away, which in the context of a covenant community means to be expelled from the fellowship, rejected by God, and banned from entering sacred places or spaces. The common Jewish culture of the day saw God as the light of the world, a strong theme in the Psalms: "The Lord is my light".
