What Does The Word Selah In Psalms Mean

Craigie surveys the options for our understanding of selah in the psalms.

Selah is a word used 74 times in the hebrew bible seventy one times in the psalms and three times in the book of habakkuk. From salah comes the belief that selah is a musical notation signifying a rest to the singers and or instrumentalists who performed the psalms. The other uses of the word selah in the bible are the ones on which we will focus our studies. Selah as little as this word is used or understood is used three times as much in the old testament as amen and hallelujah.

Seventy four times in the old testament the writers penned selah in strategic places. It can also be. Most of its occurrences are in the book of psalms with three mentions in the book of habbakuk. The meaning of the word is not known though various interpretations are given below.

Selah may be a marker of a mood shift a new paragraph a transition in thought or a way of reframing the psalm see psalm 77. Instead of being translated as praise god this word has been left for us to sound. And selah is used in over 25 of the psalms. Selah is defined as a hebrew word that has been found at the ending of verses in psalms and has been interpreted as an instruction calling for a break in the singing of the psalm or it may mean forever an example of selah is seeing the term used seventy one times in the psalms in the hebrew bible.

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It is probably either a liturgico musical mark or an instruction on the reading of the text something like stop and listen another proposal is that selah can be used to indicate that there is to be a musical interlude at that point in the psalm. Selah celah is from the primary hebrew root word calah which means to hang and by implication to measure or weigh. The implication would be that a benediction or chorus was to be sung at this point in the psalm. Selah may mean to lift up rise or to strike up with the instruments or voices.

In modern synagogues some rabbis use it to cue repetition or to change the tone when chanting the psalm. A pause or musical interlude or even louder it means for ever. If this is true then each time selah appears in a psalm the musicians paused perhaps to take a breath to sing a cappella or to let the instruments play alone.