Matthew 5:13 — “Cast Out and Trodden Under Foot”: Has the Salt Saying Been Shortened?

“It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.” — Matthew 5:13

The shorter reading does more than remove and. It recasts the final verbs. The Textus Receptus says spoiled salt is good for nothing except to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot. The critical form reads more like “being cast out, to be trodden under foot.”

The picture remains salt on the road. The received grammar gives two linked results.

Infinitives in balance

Christ first asks how savorless salt will be salted. Then he answers with a balanced pair: it is cast out and trodden down. The two infinitives depend on “good for nothing, except.” The Authorized Version preserves that structure.

The shorter construction has early support. A critic can say that a scribe added the conjunction and reshaped the first verb to create smoother parallelism. That is possible. Copyists like balance.

Copyists also shorten balance when repeated endings invite an eye-skip. Once and drops, the grammar almost demands recasting. The shorter form may therefore record one loss followed by a sensible repair. The long construction has broad Greek and versional support and sounds like Matthew’s deliberate warning.

Christ does not say true salt chemically ceases to be sodium chloride. First-century salt could be mixed with mineral matter. The useful portion could leach away and leave a tasteless residue. Whatever the physical process, the image is public failure: a disciple meant to preserve and season becomes road dust beneath human feet.

The saying is not a command for the church to chase cultural praise. Salt serves by remaining salt. The disciples must live the righteousness Christ unfolds in the sermon, even when that faithfulness brings persecution.

No doctrine changes if the shorter grammar is read. The question is whether Matthew gave the warning its paired fall. The received form has the clearer parallel, the wider transmission, and a ready account of how loss produced grammatical adjustment. The salt is cast out and trodden under foot. Two verbs mark the whole ruin of a witness that has lost its savor.

The grammar also controls the subject of the trampling. The salt does not merely fall by accident and happen to meet feet. It is judged useless, thrown outside, and then treated as refuse. The passive verbs leave the acting people unnamed because the fate, not the street crew, is Christ’s point.

“Wherewith shall it be salted?” may ask how the salt itself can regain savor or how the earth will be salted if the appointed salt fails. Either way, the disciples’ vocation is not replaceable by a decorative religion. The following lamp saying makes the positive side visible: salt must retain its savor, and light must not hide.

This is why a small conjunction can matter without carrying a doctrine alone. And lets Matthew strike both blows. Textual preservation concerns the form of inspired warnings as well as the minimum content needed to reconstruct their general idea.

Sources and further reading

• Matthew 5:1–16; Mark 9:49–50; Luke 14:34–35.
• Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, discussion of Matthew 5:13.
• Frederick H. A. Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament.