Selah, the meaning of

Selah

The term “Selah” (Ps. 3:2) is used 71 times in Psalms and three times in the Book of Habakkuk, yet its exact meaning remains obscure. Perhaps the best guess is that it indicated a musical interlude or transition.

The root word from which Selah is thought to come means “to lift up.” That led some to believe that Selah marks a climax in the music in which the singers musicians to “lift up” their praise to God. Another suggestion is that Selah is an acronymic shorthand for a musical direction, somewhat similar to modern-day notations such as mf for mezzo forte (moderately ) or pp for pianissimo (“very ”). According to this theory, Selah supposedly means “change of voices” or “repeat from the beginning.”