Selah | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 29, 1867

Selah.

To every reader of the Psalms the question frequently arises, What is the meaning of the word “selah” which occurs so frequently in that book. The following from Benjamin Davies, D. D. is probably the best light that can be given on the subject:

Selah is found seventy-three times in the Psalms, generally at the end of a sentence or paragraph; but in Ps. iv, 19, and lvii, 3, it stands in the middle of the verse. While most authors have agreed in considering this word as somehow relating to the music, their conjectures about its precise meaning have varied greatly. But at present these two opinions chiefly obtain. Some, including Herder, De Wette, and Ewald, understand a raising of the voice or music; others, after Gesenius, in Thesaurus, understand a pause in the singing. So Rosenmüller, Hengstenberg, and Tholuck. Probably selah was used to direct the singer to be silent, or to pause a little, while the instruments played an interlude or symphony. In Ps. ix, 16, it occurs in the expression higgaion selah, which Gesenius, with much probability, renders instrumental music, pause, i. e. let the instruments strike up a symphony, and let the singer pause. By Tholuck and Hengstenberg, however, the two words are rendered meditation, pause, i. e. let the singer meditate or reflect while the music stops.