Todays Covenant WORD is: Selah (Hebrew: סֶלָה, also transliterated as selāh) is a word used 74 times in the Hebrew Bible – 71 times in Psalm and three times in Habakkuk – and is a difficult concept to translate. (It should not be confused with the Hebrew word sela‘ (Hebrew: סֶלַע) which means rock.) It is probably either a liturgico-musical mark or an instruction on the reading of the text, something like stop and listen. Selah can also be used to indicate that there is to be a musical interlude at that point in the Psalm. The Amplified Bible translates selah as pause, and think of that. It can also be interpreted as a form of underlining in preparation for the next paragraph. The Psalms were sung accompanied by musical instruments and there are references to this in many chapters. Thirty-one of the thirty-nine psalms with the caption To the choir-master include the word selah. Selah notes a break in the song and as such is similar in purpose to Amen in that it stresses the importance of the preceding passage. Alternatively, selah may mean forever, as it does in some places in the liturgy (notably the second to last blessing of the Amidah). Another interpretation claims that selah comes from the primary Hebrew root word salah (Hebrew: סָלָה) which means to hang, and by implication to measure (weigh). Its etymology and precise meaning are unknown. This word occurs seventy-one times in thirty-nine of the Psalm and three times in Habakkuk 3: altogether 74 times in the Bible. It is found at the end of Psalm 3, 24, and 46, and in most other cases at the end of a verse, the exceptions being Psalm 55:19, 57:3, and Habbakuk. 3:3, 9, 13.
Posted on: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 00:37:16 +0000