Selah "The translators of the Bible have left the Hebrew word `Selah,’ which occurs so often in the Psalms, as they found it, and of course the English reader often asks his minister, or learned friend, what it means. And the minister, or learned friend, has most often been obliged to confess ignorance, because it is a matter in regard to which the most learned have by no means been of one mind. The Targums, and most of the Jewish commentators, give to the word the meaning of eternally forever. Rabbi Kimchi regards it as a sign to elevate the voice. The authors of the Septuagint translation appear to have regarded it as a musical or rhythmical note. Hender regarded it as indicating a change of the note; Matheson as a musical note, equivalent perhaps, to the word repeat. According to Luther and others, it means silence! Gesenius explains it to mean, `Let the instrument play and the singer stop.’ Wocher regards it as the equivalent to sursum corda—up, my soul! Sommer, after examining all the seventy-four passages in which the word occurs, recognizes in every case `an actual appeal or summons to Jehovah.’ They are calls for aid and prayers to be heard, expressed either with entire directness, or if not in the imperative, `Hear, Jehovah!’ or, `Awake, Jehovah!’ and the like still earnest address to God that he would remember and hear, etc. The word itself he regards as indicating a blast of the trumpets by the priest. `Selah,’ itself, he thinks an abridged expression, used for Higgaion Selah—Higgaion indicating the sound of the stringed instruments, and Selah a vigorous blast of trumpets." —Attributed to the magazine Bibliotheca Sacra by P.
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