Selah

Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary

This is a pure Hebrew word, and written exactly as it is here. The translators of the Bible have thought proper to preserve, entire as they found it. We find it scattered up and down in the book of the Psalms no less than seventy times; sometimes several times in one Psalm, and in many of the Psalms not at all. It is three times also in this third chapter of Habakkuk, and no where else that I remember in all the Scripture.

It would furnish matter for a separate treatise to bring into one view all that hath been said upon this word Selah; and after all we should be still left to conjecture. Some ancient writers have considered it as a word of particular observation, as if Selah meant to tell the reader to pause, said consider what went before. But this opinion is liable to great objection; for in this case David and Habakkuk are the only writers that thus impress consideration on their Readers, and they that always, neither at what we should consider the most striking parts of their writings: and if this were indeed the sense of Selah, how comes it that not one of the Lord's servants have ever used?

Others, and that a great majority of writers on Scripture, have concluded that the word Selah had reference to the music in the temple-service, and was a note of the ancient psalmody, but which now and for a long time, hath lost its use. This opinion doth not seem more satisfactory than the former; for supposing this to be the case, it were unaccountable that the Holy Ghost should have uniformly watched the word so as to preserve it with equal care as the Scriptures themselves with which the word is connected.

One class more have concluded that the word Selah means an end, not unlike the Amen. And though there might seem an objection to this, in that the word is more frequently found in the middle part of the psalm or hymn, and not at the last verse, yet, say they, the sense of that part ends there. I humbly conceive that this explanation, though in part it may be right, yet is not wholly so. If the word Selah means the end, perhaps it may be found not to mean the end of the Psalm where it stands, but to a higher end, even pointing to him who is "the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth," and to whom the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the Psalms, all refer as the end. ( Luke 24:44) He is the great end, no doubt, as well as the beginning, in his mediatorial character, of all the creation of God, the Amen, and the faithful witness of heaven. ( Revelation 3:14) But here I leave the subject. I am persuaded the word Selah is important; and I am inclined to thin, like some other words preserved to us in the Psalms that it refers to Christ. If the reader wishes to look at these other words, let him turn to the word Musician.

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

SELAH . A Heb. liturgical-musical term of uncertain meaning. It occurs ( a ) in the OT, ( b ) in the Psalms of Solomon, and ( c ) in the Jewish (Synagogue) Liturgy.

In the OT the term occurs 74 times altogether in the Heb. text, viz. 71 times in the Psalter, and 3 in the Prayer of Habakkuk ( Habakkuk 3:1-19 ). In the Gr. tr. [Note: translate or translation.] of the OT (the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] ) the Gr. equivalent ( diapsalma ) does not always appear in the same places as in the Heb. text; the number of occurrences is also rather larger in the LXX. [Note: Septuagint.] Possibly in some cases ‘Selah’ has fallen out of the Massoretic text accidentally. In the Psalms of Solomon ‘Selah’ occurs twice (17:31 and 18:10), and in the oldest parts of the Jewish Liturgy (apart from the canonical Psalms, which are incorporated in it) 5 times (3 in the ‘Eighteen Blessings’ and 2 in the morning Benedictions preceding the Shema ‘).

Various explanations have been proposed as to the etymology and meaning of the term. Perhaps the least improbable of these is that which regards it as a liturgical direction intended to indicate the place for lifting up the voices in a doxology at the close of a section; such a doxology might have been sung at the end of a psalm or section of a psalm which liturgically was separated from the following (cf. the use of the ‘Gloria’ at the end of Psalms or [in the case of the 119th] at the end of sections of the Psalm in Christian worship). Or it may have been a direction to the orchestra ‘Lift up! loud!’ to strike in with loud music (after the soft accompaniment to the singers’ voices) during a pause in the singing. Other theories, such as that it represents a Heb. transliteration of a Greek word ( e.g. psalle ) or an abbreviation of three words, have little probability. The meaning of the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] rendering ( diapsalma ) is as uncertain as that of the Heb. word itself.

G. H. Box.

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

Seventy-one times in the Psalms, three times in Habakkuk. From Shelah , "rest." A music mark denoting a pause, during which the singers ceased to sing and only the instruments were heard. Septuagint diapsalma, a break in the psalm introduced where the sense requires a rest. It is a call to calm reflection on the preceding words. Hence, in  Psalms 9:16 it follows Eeiggaion , "meditation." The selah reminds us that the psalm requires a peaceful and meditative soul which can apprehend what the Holy Spirit propounds. Thus it is most suggestive, and far from being, as Smith's Bible Dictionary alleges of this sense, "superfluous." Delitsseh takes it from Saalal "to lift up," a musical forte, the piano singing then ceasing, and the instruments alone playing with execution an interlude after sentences of peculiar importance, so as to emphasize them.

Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary

This expression is found in the Psalms seventy-four times, and thrice in the Prophet Habakkuk. The interpreters Symmachus and Theodotion generally translate selah by diapsalma, which signifies "a rest" or "pause" in singing. Jerom and Aquila translate it "for ever." Some moderns pretend that selah has no signification, and that it is only a note of the ancient music, whose use is no longer known; and, indeed, selah may be taken away from all the places where it is found without interrupting the sense of the psalm. Calmet says it intimates the end, or a pause, and that is its proper signification; but as it is not always found at the conclusion of the sense, or of the psalm or song, so it is highly probable the ancient musicians put selah in the margin of their psalters, to show where a musical pause was to be made, or where the tune ended.

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Se'lah. This word, which is found only in the poetical books of the Old Testament, occurs seventy-one times in the Psalms, and three times in Habakkuk. It is probably a term which had a meaning in the musical nomenclature of the Hebrews, though what that meaning may have been is now a matter of pure conjecture. (Gesenius and Ewald and others think it has much the same meaning as our interlude, a pause in the voices singing, while the instruments perform alone. - Editor)

American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

A musical term which occurs seventy-three times in the Psalms, and is found also in  Habakkuk 3:3,9,13 . It usually occurs at the end of a period or apostrophe, but sometimes at the end only of a clause. This difficult word, it is now generally believed, was a direction for a meditative pause in the singing of a psalm, during which perhaps there was an instrumental interlude.

Morrish Bible Dictionary

A term occurring in  Habakkuk 3:3,9,13 , and many times in the Psalms.There have been various suggestions as to its meaning, but its signification is not really known. The Targum mostly renders the word 'for ever.' The LXX has διάψαλμα, denoting, as some think, 'a pause, a break or rest.' 'Pause, consider,' is perhaps its signification.

People's Dictionary of the Bible

Selah. This Hebrew musical term, which occurs 73 times in the Psalms, and elsewhere only in  Habakkuk 3:3;  Habakkuk 3:9;  Habakkuk 3:13, is supposed to be connected with the use of the temple music.

Webster's Dictionary

(n.) A word of doubtful meaning, occuring frequently in the Psalms; by some, supposed to signify silence or a pause in the musical performance of the song.

Holman Bible Dictionary

 Habakkuk 3:1

Mike Mitchell

Easton's Bible Dictionary

 Habakkuk 3:9,13

Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature

Selah, word

Se´lah [[[Psalms, Book Of]]]

Selah, place