This word is found approximately 74 times in the Bible, mostly in the book of Psalms. All the Bible Dictionaries that I’ve referenced say that the meaning in unclear. Is anyone familiar with the term?
selah: A Hebrew word occurring often in the Psalms (and three times in Habakkuk iii), indicating some musical or liturgical direction, such as a pause, a repetition, or the end of a section.
Source: Brewer
My understanding was that the word was thought to be perhaps a musical direction. --N
I thought it was a Rhode Island/Massachusetts noun for the lowest floor in a house.
Naw, it’s a town in Washington state, just north of Yakima.
It’s odd to see this question here this week; I was actually reading through some of the Psalms and ran across the word myself, then trotted off to look it up and thought “Oh. Well, I’ll never see THAT word again anywhere.”
Just curious, was the OP based on some Scriptural reading at a service for the recent events? That’s certainly what led me to encounter the word.
It’s particularly odd because I’m not a Christian, and use my Bible more as a bookend than as the reference I purchased it for.
Corr
I don’t think anyone knows for sure exactly what it means, but by inference from the context, many people take it to mean ‘pause for reflection’.
Selah can also mean, in conjunction with the rest/pause concept something along the order of “think about it” or “reflect upon it”
I once took a University class for Bible as Literature a long time ago, shortly after these Psalms were written. The professor (Dearing was his name-o) explained that no one knew what it meant, it was probably a musical direction, as mentioned above.