“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