Reassessing Selah

Selah, an obscure term in the Psalter and Habakkuk, has commonly been the subject of discussion regarding its meaning and use. Many 19th century scholars have spent countless hours, and devoted many pages, to remove Selah from obscurity. Only now have we revealed a previously undiscovered clue in Selah’s use during the Second Temple period due to 20th century archaeological finds. The present work approaches each text with a “whole picture” perspective to examine each psalm and Selah occurrence in its immediate context. Many scholars believed that Selah was simply an instruction for the musical director, but new evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls suggests that it was a live term in the Second Temple period.