“Selah”: A Divine Pause

Psalm 4

Have you ever been reading through the psalms and come across this little word out to the side, “selah”? It occurs in barely a quarter of the psalms, and most translations leave the word untranslated. The combination of its rarity and foreignness mean that you probably never have given much attention to it. It is just some weird word hanging out apart from the rest of the psalm. Clearly it is not terribly significant.
That selah is insignificant probably is not far from the truth, as far as we are concerned. Likely it was some sort of musical notation (since the psalms are, in fact, “songs”) meant for the song leader when he was performing the psalm. Selah probably is not much different than the other notations made before the songs which say, “To the choirmaster. Of the Sons of Koran. According to Alamoth” (Psalm 46) or “A Maskil of David” (Psalm 32). Since we do not perform these psalms anymore and since we do not know what these musical notations mean, selah probably holds little relevance for us when we read the psalms.
However, there is one element of selah which might be useful for us when we read the psalms. It is thought that this bit of notation is meant to signal a sort of interlude. Perhaps selah signaled when the instruments would continue without vocal accompaniment. Perhaps selah signaled a sort of response from the people. In the Middle East, from the ancient time until now, it is common for religious worship to involve position changes from standing to kneeling to prostration and so forth. Selah may be an instruction to the people to adopt a particular position at this point in the song before it continues. Regardless of which of these is the accurate description, what is clear is that selah marks a special moment in the song, a moment when the worshipper is meant to be particularly reflective. This reflection might come as the words stop and the music continues, or this reflection might come as the worshipper changes their posture of worship. The point is that it is a moment of reflection.
Although the exact meaning is lost to us, I think we still can capture this moment of reflection in our own reading of the psalms. Consider Psalm 4. The first two verses read as the psalmists call to God and God’s response. God poses two questions to his people: “How long shall my honor suffer shame? How long will you love vain words and seek after lies?” (4:2). When we get to the selah, there is an opportunity to reflect on the questions before one continues with the psalm. “How long,” indeed? How could I answer God? Am I really doing these things? What should I be doing differently? After the moment of reflection, you read on through verse 4: “When you are disturbed, do not sin; ponder it on your beds and be silent.” Again, the selah at this point gives us a chance to think about what has been enjoined. Being agitated is a good opportunity to sin, so I should take special care in those moments. I should reflect silently on what disturbs me and why. Would I find that helpful? When was the last time that I spent time going over things that bothered me in order that I might not be bothered again?
Let me encourage you to read the psalms with selah in this way. Take them as an opportunity to reflect on what the psalm has said and on your own connection to God. There is no rule that says we have to rush through our reading of Scripture. We can pause and think about what we have read. If we do, we might find that we understand more of what God has spoken to us and the significance of what we have heard. -TL

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