Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Søren Holst <sh AT teol.ku.dk>]

According to John Goldingay (I think it was), for all we know it could be
the swearword David used when he broke a string.

just my two cents
happy sunday & shavua tov

Soren

> -----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
> Fra:  ben.crick AT argonet.co.uk [SMTP:ben.crick AT argonet.co.uk]
> Sendt:        17. august 2003 00:47
> Til:  b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Emne: Re: [b-hebrew] Selah??
> 
> On Fri 15 Aug 2003 (23:00:51), peterg45 AT excite.com wrote:
> > Selah is a word which God slipped into the Old Testament Scriptures to
> > remind Hebrew scholars that they don't know everything.
> 
>  Yes, like He stuck the fossils into the rocks to confuse the
>  anti-Creationists. 8-^)
> 
>  Baethgen and others have suggested that SeLaH is a Hebrew transcription
> of
>  the Greek YALLE (where Y=Psi), "play". After all, the Greek word AFIKOMEN
>  comes in the Haggadah of the Passover, so if the Psalter is the hymn book
> of
>  the Second Temple, that's not as anachronistic as one might think. Many
> of the
>  Bible's musical terms are Greek derived (compare Daniel 3:5, etc).
> 
>  Of the 74 occurrences of Selah, all but 4 are in pause with Silluq and
> Soph
>  Pasuq: i.e. they are an extra "pause" at the end of a verse. To say that
> this
>  is a cue to the musicians to strike up an interlude or a postlude is
> quite
>  plausible. This is reinforced by Psalm 9:17 (16 in EVV) where we have
>  HiGGaYoWN SeLaH, "play a stringed instrument(?)".
> 
>  The problem comes with the four instances where SeLaH occurs in the
> middle of
>  a verse: i.e. Psalm 55:20 (19 in EVV) and 57:4 (5 in EVV); and in
> Habakkuk
>  3:3 and 3:9.
> 
>  In Ps 57:4 SeLaH is in pause with Athnach; but even so, is an interlude
>  needed in the middle of a sentence, stopping at a comma or a colon?
> Likewise
>  in Habakkuk 3:3, 9 SeLaH is in pause with Athnach in the middle of a
> verse. I
>  suppose this is the strict meaning of "Inter-lude": something "played" in
> the
>  "middle" of something?  Then SeLaH at the end of a verse would be a
> Postlude.
> 
>  The SeLaH in Psalm 55:20 (19) seems so out of place that Kittel offers an
>  emendation "prps KuLLoH". My lexical resources don't run to this; the
> nearest
>  word I can find is KaLLaH, daughter-in-law or spouse, which makes no
> sense in
>  context. This verse is a difficult one to construe anyway...
> 
>  Shalom
> 
>  Ben
> -- 
>  Revd Ben Crick BA CF, and Mrs Joanna (Goodwin) Crick
>  <ben.crick AT argonet.co.uk>
>  232 Canterbury Road, Birchington, Kent, CT7 9TD (UK)
>  http://www.cnetwork.co.uk/crick.htm
> 
> 
> 
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