A reflection by Christina Brennan Lee for May 7, 2023.

-Let me abide in your tent forever, find refuge under the shelter of your wings. Selah
New RSV

-I will abide in Your tabernacle forever; I will trust in the shelter of Your wings. Selah
New KJV

-I will dwell in thy Tabernacle forever, and my trust shall be under the covering of thy wings. Selah
1599 Geneva Bible

-I will abide in Thy ohel forever; I will take refuge in the covert of Thy wings. Selah
Orthodox Jewish Bible

-Let me abide in your tent forever, find refuge under the shelter of your wings. Selah
New RS Catholic Version

You’ll notice in the five different quotes above from the same Psalm and verse there are slight differences in the translations.

Those differences have played out over millennia whether in the gold, the silver, and the rare colors found in elaborate calligraphy in the artful and prayerful illuminations in ancient writing, in the archaeological and scholarly explorations of language and history in the context of its time, or one’s own mystical and personal relationship with the Bible ~ whether in a particular book, a chapter, a verse ~ we, who engage with it, may find one translation more useful than another to shed a light on our path, a resonance within ourselves, and often, more questions than answers.

There have been, are now, and will be innumerable studies of the texts, resulting in many more interpretations, much more knowledge, and fresh understanding and yet, with all the work of highly educated researchers, linguists, religious scholars, professors, and world class preachers of varying denominations and cultures, Christian and non-Christian alike, there is one tiny little word that no one, ever, anywhere has completely defined: Selah.

Selah is found 71 times in the Psalms and 3 times in the book of Habakkuk.

There are many theories about it ~ it may be a musical direction, a liturgical pause, perhaps it is meant to connect thoughts. It occurs at the end of some verses and most often at the end of a psalm itself. You won’t find it at all in the Psalms section of the US Book of Common Prayer, in the UK 1662 Book of Common Prayer, in A New Zealand Prayer Book, or even in some Bible printings. But it is in most Bibles old and new including the 3rd verse above from the 1599 Geneva Bible. And it truly is a mystery and a curiosity that no one has an absolute definition.

Does it really matter?

We can use it as a pause for reflection, to stop and listen to how a particular passage or phrase reverberates within us. We can pass it by without any thought or action. As a North Carolina United Methodist Minister, James Howell, says, “I find myself fond of the fact that we don’t really know. We never master the Bible, and I suspect God chuckles a bit when we’re befuddled. When we join that angelic host for worship in heaven…then we’ll get it and do the ‘Selah’ thing ourselves.”

“Holy and Mystical Lord God of Heaven, in this season of Eastertide, I want to find Your Voice in the small words as well as the grand, in the quiet as well as the thunder, in the commonplace as well as the extraordinary. As we continue to explore all the facets of The Resurrection in its own time, I pause, reflect, and wonder what it means to me in my own. May I remind myself to look for You through your Word in every form, in every way, in every day, and, to discover many times over, in this and all seasons of my earthly life, the illumination of the Word in and for my daily life. And when the day moves too quickly with too many to do’s, help me to stop, listen, receive, to pause for the effect of Your presence in and around me, to breathe slowly in and slowly out again with: Ah, Selah! Amen.”

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Every week, Christina Brennan Lee writes the Prayers of the People we use in our worship services on Sundays. She also leads weekday prayer services and serves on the SsAM Vestry. Click here to see her People’s Prayers website.

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