Charles Ellicott Commentary Luke 14:35

"It is fit neither for the land nor for the dunghill: [men] cast it out. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." — Luke 14:35 (ASV)

It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill.—The illustration, differing as it does from that in Matthew 5:13 and Mark 9:50, proves the independence of the saying as here recorded. A new use of salt, distinct from that of preserving food, or its symbolic meaning in sacrifice, is brought before us, and becomes the groundwork of a new parable.

The use is obviously a lower and humbler one than the others. The salt serves, mingling with the dunghill, to manure and prepare the ground for the reception of the seed.

Bear this in mind, and the interpretation of the parable, connected, as it is, with that of the Fig-tree (see Note on Luke 13:8), is obvious.

A corrupt church cannot even exercise an influence for good over the secular life of the nation which it represents. The religious man whose religion has become a hypocrisy cannot even be a good citizen, or help others forward in the duties of their active life by teaching or example.

The church and the individual man are alike fit only to be “cast out”—to become, i.e., a byword and proverb of reproach. Our Lord’s sense, if we may so speak, of the depth and fullness of the meaning of His words, is shown by His emphatic reproduction of the words that had accompanied His first parable, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.