Selah

In the "Dynamic Equivalence--Again" thread, Rippon asked how I handle "Selah." (This is the Hebrew word סֶֽלָה.) My answer was, "Transliterate," which for the uninformed means to simply take the word into the target language as is, spelling it with the alphabet of the target language. This is the standard strategy for the word. Here's why.

First of all, the meaning is lost to history. BDB's lexicon says, "1) to lift up, exalt 1a) Selah 1a1) a technical musical term probably showing accentuation, pause, interruption" (accessed through e-sword). Holladay's lexicon says, "unexpl., evid. supplementary tech. term in music or recitation; sugg.: 1. raising of voice to higher pitch; 2. ‘for ever’; 3. pause (for instrumental interlude); 4. an acrostic indicating a) change of voices, or b) ‘da capo’" (accessed through BibleWorks).

Going back in time, the Latin Vulgate omitted it, but the LXX (Septuagint) translated it with διάψαλμα (diapsalma), which does not appear in my Greek lexicons, but judging by the etymology probably means "for the music." So it is generally agreed that this is a technical term for a musical meaning.

Most translations, as said, simply transliterate Selah, though occasionally one will try to provide a meaning for it, though the lexical sources are ambiguous. So why transliterate? Why not just ignore it, like translators do with some particles? That's because it is not a particle, which is a word with grammatical meaning but usually no lexical meaning (my definition), such as eth (אֵת) in the Hebrew language, a marker for the direct object. (One deluded soul based a complete revision of the KJV on the idea that eth should be translated or transliterated, and is no doubt making money off the suckers who bought that silliness: cepher.net.)

So if selah is not a particle, what is it? All scholars agree that it is a musical term, and thus had meaning for the original. We have many technical musical terms in our music literature, which you know if you are at all a musician: ritardando, obbligato, etc. These words are in Italian, but their Italian form is kept in the English.

Here is what one perceptive author wrote, including Selah with other musical terms in the headings of the Psalms: "The meaning of many such musical terms in the headings continues to elude biblical scholars; they serve as a useful reminder, however, that the book of Psalms is not merely a collection of poetry, but contains the hymns and songs employed in Israel's worship" (N. H. Ridderbos and P. C. Craigie, "Psalms" in ISBE, 1986, Vol. 4, 1031).

So back to the beginning. What do I do with Selah? I transliterate it, because it has the meaning that the Psalm it occurs in is musical.

 

That's pretty crazy!