Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1892-06-03
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINES SUN.
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "Selah."
TEXT: ".SeLnh." -Psalms Iii. 4.

They consider it superhuity, mere filling
in, meaningless inter lection, a useless re-
frain, an underlined echo. Selah! But
have to tell you that it is no Scriptural &C
cident. It occurs seventy-four times in the
Book Of Psalms and three times in the Book
Of Habakkuk. You must not charge this
perfect book with seventy-seyen trivialities.
Selahi 1t is an enthroned word. If, accord
ing to old writer, some words are battles,
then this word is Marathon, Thermopy-
lac, Sedan, Waterloo. 1t is word de-
cisive, sometimes for poetic beauty, some
times for grandeur, and sometimes for
eternal import. Through it roll the thun-
dering chariots of the Omnipotent God.
l take this word for my text because | am
so often asked what is its meaning, or
whether it has any meaning at all. 1t has
an ocean Of meaning, from which I shall
this morning dip up only four or five buck
etfuls. / will speak to you. sc. far as l have
time, of the Selah of poetic significance. the
Selah of intermission, the Selah of emphasis
and the Selah of perpetuity.
Are you surprised that [ speak of the
Selah Of poetic significance? Surely the God
who sapphired the heavens and made the
earth a rosebud of beauty, with oceans
hanging to it like drops of morning dew,
would not make a Bible without rhythm.
without redolence, without blank verse.
God knew that eventually the Bible would
be read by great majority Of young peo-
pie, for in this world of malaria and casualty
an octogenarian is exceptional, and as thirty
years Is more than the average or human
life. if the Bible is to be successful book it
must be adapted to the young. Hence the
prosodY of the Bible-the drama of Job, the
pastoral of Ruth, the epic of Judges, the
dithyrambic of Habakkuk, the threnody of
Jeremiah, the lyric of Solomon's Song, the
oratorio Of the Apocalypse, the idyl, the
strophe and antistrophe, and the Selah Of
the Psalms.
Wherever you find this word Selah it
means that you are to rouse up to great
stanza, that you are to open your soul to
great analogies, that you are to spread the
wing of your imagination for great flight.
81 answered thee in the secret place of thun-
der; proved thee at the waters of Meribah.
Selah." "The earth and all the inhabitants
thereof are dissolved; bear up the pillars
of it. Selah.' ''Who is the King of Glory?
The Lord of Hosts, He is the King of Glory.
Selah." Thou shalt compass me about with
songs of deliverance. Selah." Though
the waters thereof roar and be troubled,
though the mountains shake with the SWELL
ing thereof. Selah." 1.-THE Lord of Hosts is
with us, the God Of Jacob is our refuge.
that fear Thee, that it may be displayed
because of the truth. Selah." II will hide
under the covert of Thy wings. Selah."
"Oh, God, when Thou wentest forth before
Thy people, when Thou didst march through
the wilderness. Selah."
Of warning hung out to tell you to stand off
the track while the rushing train goes by
with its imperial passengers, Poetic word,
charged with sunrise and sunset. and tempest
and earthquake, and resurrections and
millenniums.
Permission. Gesenius, Tholuck, Hengsten-
berg and other writers agree in saying that
this word Selah means rest In music; what
the Greeks call a diapsalma, pause, halt
in the solemn march Of cantillation.
Every musician knows the Importance Of
it. If you ever saw Julien, the great
musical leader, stand before five thousand
singers and players upon instruments, and
with one stroke of his baton smite the multi-
tudinous halIelujah into silence, and then,
soon after that, with another stroke OF his
baton rose up the full orchestra to great
outburst of harmony, then you know the
mighty effect of a musical pause. 1t gives
more power to what went before; it gives
more power to what is to come after.
So God thrrsts the Selah into His Bible
and into our lives, compelling us to stop and
think, stop and consider, stop and admire,
stop and pray, stop and repent, stop and be
sick, stop and die. 1t is not the great num-
Der of times that we read the Bible through
that makes US intelligent in the Scriptures.
We must pause. What though it take an
hour for one word? What though it take
week for one verse? What thou Oh it take
measure the height, the depth, the length,
the breadth, the universe, the eternity OF
meaning in one verse.
should like to see some one sail around
one little adverb in the Bible, a little adverb
of two letters. during one lifetime-the word
''so' in the New Testament passage, ''God
so loved the world" Augustine made a long
pause after the verse, 'Put We on the Lord
Jesus Christ" and it converted him. Mat
thew Henry made long pause after the
verse, 'Open Thou my lips, and my mouth
shall show forth Thy praise" and it convert
ed him. William Cowper made a long
pause after the verse; being freely justified
by His grace, " and it converted him. When
God tells us seventy-seven times medltatlvely
to pause in reading two books OF the Bible,
He leaves to our common sense to decide
how often we should pause in reading the
other sixty-four books Of the Bible.
We must pause and ask for more light.
We must pause and weep over our sins. We
must pause and absorb the strength of one
promise. I sometimes hear people boasting
about how many times they have read the
Bible through, when they seem to know no
more about it then passenger would know
about the State of Pennsylvania who should
go through it in st. Louis lightning ex-
press train and in Pullman Sleeper" the
two characteristics of the journey, velocity
and somnolence. 1t is not the number OF
of times you go through the Bible, but the
number of times the Bible goes through you.
Pause, reflect. Selahl
So also on the scroll OF your life and mind.
We 60 rushing on in the song of our pros
perity from note of joy to note Of joy, aud it
Is long drawn out legato, and we become
Indifferent and unappreclatlve when sud
denly we come upon a blank in the music.
There is nothing between those bars. A
pause. God will fill it up with sick bed,
or a commercial disaster, or a grave. But,
thank God, it is not breaking down. 1t is
only pause. 1t helps us to appreciate the
annrscia ton of the hlaSSino.s that ara to