Manure

The agricultural use of manure as fertilizer surfaces in scripture in two registers — a literal one in parable, and a figurative one in oracle and saying. The dunghill is the place where waste straw is trodden down and where useless salt is finally cast out; in a parable, the keeper digs and dungs around an unfruitful tree to give it one more year. The image moves between life-giving fertility and the rejection-heap.

Digging and Dunging the Fig

In the parable of the unfruitful fig, the keeper presses for a stay of execution: "And answering he says to him, Lord, leave it alone this year also, until I will dig about it, and dung it" (Luke 13:8). Manure is here the agency of an extended chance — the means by which barrenness is given one more season to bear.

The Dunghill in Oracle and Saying

In the Isaiah oracle against Moab, the dunghill stands for the place of disgrace: "For in this mountain the hand of Yahweh will rest; and Moab will be trodden down in his place, even as straw is trodden down in the water of the dunghill" (Isa 25:10). Moab is trodden as straw is trodden into the muck.

The Lord uses the same image for salt that has lost its savor. First the comparison: "Salt therefore is good: but if even the salt has lost its savor, how will it be seasoned?" (Luke 14:34). Then the verdict: "It is fit neither for the land nor for the dunghill: [men] cast it out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear" (Luke 14:35). What cannot fertilize the land cannot even be added to the dunghill; it is simply discarded.