The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1892-05-24
MAJESTY AND NIGHT.
THE TREMENDOUS SIGNIFICANCE OF
THE WORD ''SELAH."

garding an Oft Repeated Yet Little I'm
derstood Old Testament Expression.
Practical Lessons for Christians.
BROOKLYN, May 22.-Rev. DR.. Tai
mage today took for the subject of his
sermon a single word of frequent occur
renee in the Bible. and whose meaning
is but little understood. From it he
drew profoundly impressive descrip-
ton of the varied and majestic purposes
of certain parts of Scripture. and prac-
teal lesson for Christians generally.
The text was Psalms Xxi. 4, ''Selah.'
The majority of Bible readers look
upon this word of my text as of no i'm
portance. They consider it a superf1u-
ity, a mere filing III. = meaningless in
terjection, "a useless refrain, an unde-
fined echo. Selah! But have to tell
you that it is no Scriptural accident. 1t
occurs seventy-four times III the Book of
Psalms and three times in the Book of
Habakkuk. You must not charge this
perfect book with seventy-sevcn trivial
ties. Selah! 1t is an euthroned word.
If, according to an old writer, some
words are battles, then this word is a
Marathon, a Thermopyln, Il Sedan, a
Waterloo. 1t is word decisive, some
times for poetic beauty, sometimes for
selemnity, sometimes for grandeur, and
sometimes for eternal import. Through
it roll the laundering chariots of the
omnipotent God.
take this word for my text because l
am so often asked what is its meaning,
or whether it has any meaning at all. 1t
~,l, |
shall this morning dip up only four or
five bucketfuls. will speak TO you, so
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 rosebud of beauty,
with oceans hanging TO it like drops Of
morning dew, would not make Bible
without rhythm, without redolence,
without blank verse. God knew that
eventually the Bible would be read by
great majority of young people, for in
this world of malaria and casualty an
octogenarian is exceptional. and as th1r-
ty years is more than the average of
human life, if the Bible is to be a sue
cessful book it must lee adapted to the
young. Hence the prosody of the Bible
the drama of Job. the pastoral Of
Ruth, the epic of Judges. the dithyram-
bic Of Habakkuk, the threnodY of Jere-
miah, the lyric of Solonon's Song, the
oratOrio of the Apocalypse, the idyl, the
strophe and antistrophe, and the Selah
of the Psalms.
ITS GREAT SIGNIFICANCE.
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 Il answered thee in the secret
place of thunder; | proved thee at the
waters of Meribah. Selah. The earth
and all the inhabitants thereof are dis
solved; bear up the Pillars of it. Sc
lah.' ''Who is this 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 swelling thereof. Selah.'
The Lord of Hosts is with US. the God
of Jacob is our refuge. Selah." Thou
hast given banner to them that fear
thee, that it may be displayed because
of the truth. Selah." Il Will hide IN
der the covert of thy wings. SeIah."
ooh, God, when thou wentest forth be
fore thy people, when thou didst march
through the wilderness. Selah."
Wherever you find this word it is sig
nal of warning hung out to tell you to
stand off the track while the rushing
train goes by with its imperial passen-
gers. Poetic word, charged with sun
rise and sunset and tempest and earth
quake, and resurrections and Inillen-
NUNS.
Next come to speak of the Selah of
intermission. Gesenius, Tholuck, Heng-
stenberg and other writers agree in say
ing that this word Selah means "A rest in
music; what the Greeks call dap
salma, a pause, a 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 thou
sand singers and players upon instru-
ments, and with one stroke of his baton
smite the multitudinous hallelujah into
silence, and then, soon after that, with
another stroke of his baton rouse up the
full orchestra to great outburst of har-
mony, then you know the mighty effect
of musical pause. 1t gives more pow
er to what went before; it gives more
power to what is to come after.
SoGod thrusts 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 number of times that we read
the Bible through that makes US intelli-
gent in the Scriptures. We must pause.
What though it take an hour for one
word? What though it take Il week for
one verse? What though it take a year
for one chapter? We must pause and
measure the height, the depth. the
length, the breadth, the universe, the
,ate1.nitv of Tnpanino. in one verse