What Does Selah Mean in the Bible? The Hebrew Word Explained

If you have read the Psalms out loud, you have probably stopped at the same place everyone does. A line ends, and then there is one more word on its own: Selah. You are not sure whether to say it, skip it, or pause. Most people quietly skip it.

That is understandable, because nobody knows for certain what Selah means. But it is not a mystery with no clues. We know how often it appears, where it sits, what the oldest translations did with it, and what the word it probably comes from means. Put those together and you get a useful, honest answer, and a way to read the Psalms that slows you down at exactly the right moments.

What does Selah mean? The short answer

Selah is a Hebrew word, Strong's H5542 (selah), that appears 74 times in the Old Testament: 71 times in 39 psalms and 3 times in the prayer of Habakkuk 3. It is almost certainly a musical or liturgical direction, a note to the singers or the musicians rather than part of the sentence itself. Its exact meaning was lost early, which is why the King James translators left it untranslated.

The dictionaries reflect the uncertainty. Strong's derives Selah from salah (H5541), to hang up or to weigh, and defines it as a "suspension" of the music, a pause. Other lexicons, including Brown-Driver-Briggs, connect it instead to salal (H5549), a verb meaning to lift up or raise, as you would build up a highway. Both are reasonable readings of thin evidence, and good reference works say so.

Where Selah appears

Selah is concentrated in the Psalms, and it clusters in psalms that carry musical headings such as "To the chief Musician." That fits the idea that it belongs to the performance of the song. It never appears in the New Testament, and outside the Psalms it shows up only in Habakkuk 3, a prayer that ends, "To the chief singer on my stringed instruments" (Habakkuk 3:19). In other words, the one place it appears outside the Psalter is also a song set to music.

Here is one of the best places to watch it work. Psalm 46 uses Selah three times, and each time it falls at the end of a movement:

The first stanza ends in an earthquake and a roaring sea. Selah. The second stanza ends with "The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah" (Psalm 46:7). The psalm closes with "Be still, and know that I am God" and the same refrain, followed by one last Selah (Psalm 46:10–11). Whatever the singers did at those points, the structure is clear: the word sits where the thought turns.

The main theories, and what each one gets right

Scholars have proposed several meanings. None has won outright, and it is better to know the options than to pick one and pretend the question is closed.

1. A pause or interlude

The oldest evidence we have points here. The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament made before the time of Christ, renders Selah as diapsalma, a word most take to mean a musical interlude, something played between sections of the song. This is the explanation you will find in most study Bibles.

2. "Lift up"

If Selah comes from salal (H5549), to lift up, it may have told the musicians to raise the volume, raise the pitch, or lift the instruments at that point. Some connect it to the people lifting their voices in response. This view sits comfortably with the pause view: an instrumental swell between verses is both an interlude and a lifting up.

3. "Forever"

Some ancient Jewish interpreters, including the Targum (the Aramaic paraphrase of the Scriptures) and some early Greek translators, read Selah as meaning always or forever. That reading treats it as a kind of liturgical "amen," sealing what came before. It is an old tradition and worth knowing, though most modern scholars think the musical explanation fits the placement better.

4. A cue for the congregation

Others suggest Selah marked the place for a response, a blessing, a bow, or a repeated line. This is harder to prove, but it would explain why the word sometimes falls in the middle of a psalm rather than only at the end of a section.

What all four share: Selah is not part of the sentence. It is a mark in the margin of worship telling the people what to do with what they just heard. You do not need to know exactly which instruction it was to obey its spirit.

Selah and its neighbor, Higgaion

Selah once appears alongside another musical word. Psalm 9:16 reads, "The LORD is known by the judgment which he executeth: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. Higgaion. Selah." Higgaion (H1902) carries the sense of a murmur, a meditation, or a resounding sound; the same word is used for music played "upon the harp with a solemn sound" in Psalm 92:3. Put together, "Higgaion. Selah." reads something like: let this resound, and pause. It is one more clue that these words belong to the music and the meditation of the psalm, not to its grammar.

Five places to slow down at Selah

The practical value of Selah is that it tells you where the psalmist wanted the weight to fall. Here are five places where stopping changes how the psalm reads.

1. Psalm 3:2. "Many there be which say of my soul, There is no help for him in God. Selah." David stops on the accusation. Then the next line answers it: "But thou, O LORD, art a shield for me" (Psalm 3:3). The pause makes you feel the lie before you hear the truth.
2. Psalm 4:4. "Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah." Here the text itself tells you to be still, and then the Selah gives you room to do it.
3. Psalm 32:5. "I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah." Confession, then forgiveness, then silence. Do not rush past the forgiveness.
4. Psalm 62:8. "Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah." The pause is an invitation to actually pour out your heart before you keep reading.
5. Psalm 68:19. "Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah." A natural place to name one specific good thing from today.

If you are reading the Psalms during a hard stretch, the Selahs often fall right after the line you most need. Many of the passages in our Bible verses for anxiety come from psalms that use it, Psalm 46 among them.

Should you read Selah out loud?

There is no rule. Some churches read the word aloud because it is printed in the text; others leave it silent, the way you would not read a musical direction like "slowly" in the middle of a hymn. Both are reasonable. What matters more is what you do at the mark. A few habits that help:

• Pause for one breath. When you hit Selah, stop and reread the line before it once, slowly.
• Ask one question. What did that line just claim about God, and do I believe it right now?
• Write one sentence. If you keep a journal, the Selah is a natural place to write what stood out. The same habit works for preaching; see our guide to taking sermon notes.
• Pray the line back. Turn the verse before the Selah into a sentence addressed to God.

What Selah does not mean

Because the word is uncertain, it attracts confident explanations online that the evidence does not support. Be cautious with any claim that Selah has a single precise English equivalent, or that it is a secret code, or that a phrase like "pause and think of that" is its proven translation. The popular "pause and weigh this" reading grows out of Strong's link to salah, to weigh; it is a fine way to read a Selah, but it is one proposal, not a settled definition. Honest teaching says what we know, which is quite a lot, and admits what we do not.

How Healthy Faith helps you study words like Selah

The fastest way to see what Selah is doing is to look at it in place, across many psalms, with the Hebrew underneath. That is what Healthy Faith is built for. Read the King James text, hold any word, and the Strong's entry opens: H5542 for Selah, H5541 and H5549 for the two proposed roots, H1902 for Higgaion. You can ask a question of the word, such as where else it appears or how translators have handled it, and get an answer grounded in the text. Highlight the Selahs you want to come back to and write a line in the prayer journal when one stops you. If you are working through the Psalms on a reading plan, the word study is one tap away the whole time.

You can find more word studies and reading guides on the Healthy Faith Daily blog.

FAQ

What does Selah mean in the Bible?

Selah (Strong's H5542) is a Hebrew word found 74 times in the Old Testament, 71 in the Psalms and 3 in Habakkuk 3. Its exact meaning is uncertain, but most scholars take it as a musical or liturgical direction, probably a pause or interlude where the music lifted up before the next section.

Should you say Selah out loud when reading the Psalms?

There is no rule. Some readers and churches say it because it is printed in the text; others leave it silent like a musical direction. Either way, the best use of it is to pause and let the line before it settle.

Is Selah in the New Testament?

No. Selah appears only in the Old Testament: in 39 psalms and in the prayer of Habakkuk 3 (verses 3, 9 and 13), which is also a song set to music.

What is the Hebrew root of Selah?

Nobody is certain. Strong's links it to salah (H5541), to hang up or weigh, and defines it as a pause in the music. Other lexicons connect it to salal (H5549), to lift up. Some ancient Jewish tradition read it as meaning forever.

The bottom line

Selah is a musical mark whose exact meaning was lost early, most likely a pause or a lifting up of the music. You do not need to settle the debate to use it well: when you reach a Selah, stop, reread the line before it, and let it land before you go on.