The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1892-06-10
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
a Single Word Of More Portent
than Generally Imagined
"Seiah'' and Its signI6cance-Its PoetIcal
Meningitis Importance ma N Sign
of IntermIssion and
Emphasis.

The majority of Bible readers look
upon this word of my text as of no inn
portance. They consider it a superf1ui-
", a mere filling in, meaningless in
terjection, a useless refrain, an unde-
fined echo. Selahl But / have to tell
you that it is no scriptural accident. 1t
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-seven
trivialities. Selah! 1t is an enthroned
word. II, according to an old writer,
some words are battles, then this word
is Marathon, a ThermobylB, Sedan,
a Waterloo. 1t is a word decisive,
sometimes for poetic beauty, sometimes
for solemnity, sometimes for grandeur,
and sometimes for eternal import.
Through il roll the laundering chariots
of the Omnipotent God
take this word for my text because
] am so often asked what is its mean
ing. or whether it has any meaning at
all 1t has an ocean of meaning, from
which / shall this morning dip up only
four or five bucketfuls- / will speak to
you, so far as | have time, of the Selah
of poetic significance, the Selah of in
PERMISSION, the Selah 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
a great majority of young people, for in
this world of malaria and casualty an
octogenarian is exceptional, and as
thirty years is more than the average
of human life, if the Bible is to be a
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 dithy-
rambic of Habakluk, the threnody of
jeremiah, the lyric of Solomon's song,
the oratorio of Apocalypse, the idyl,
the strophe and antistrophe, and the
Selah of the Psalms.
Wherever you find this word Seleh,
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 fight. 'I answered thee in
the secret place of thunder; I proved
thee at the waters of Meribah. Selah. -
THE earth and all the inhabitants
thereof are dissolved; / bear up the pill
lars of il. Selah." 'Who is this King
of glory7 The Lord of hosts, He is the
King of glory. Selah." Thou shalt
compass me about with songs of deliv-
GRANGE. Selah." Though the waters
thereof roar and be troubled, though
the mountains shake with the swelling
thereof Selah" 1.-THE Lord of hosts
is with us, the God of Jacob is our re-
fuge Selah" Thou hast given n
banner to them that fear Thee, that it
may be displayed because of the truth.
Selah." II will hide under the covert
of Thy wings. Selah." 80, God, when
Thou wentest forth before Thy people,
when Thou dds. march through tn e
wilderness. Selah."
Wherever Won find this word it is a
signal of warning hung out to tell you
10 stand off the track while the rush
ing train goes by with its imperial pas
sengers. Poetic word, charged with
sunrise and sunset, and tempest and
earthquake, and restrictions and mil
lennIumS.
Next come to speak of the Selah of
intermission. Gesenius, Tholuck,
Hengstenberg and other writer's agree
in saying that this word Selah means a
rest in music-what the Greeks call a
diapsalma, a pause, a halt in the sol
cmn march of cantillation. Every mu-
stefan 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 multitudinOus hallelujah into ST.
lence, and then, soon after that. with
another stroke of his baton rouse up
the full orchestra to a great outburst
of harmony, them you know the mighty
effect of musical pause. IL gives
more power to what went before; il
gives more power 60 what is to come
after So God 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 intelligent in the Scrip
lures. We must pause. What though
it take an hour for one word?
What though it take a week for
one verse? What though il take \
year for one chapter? We must pause
and 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, little
adverb of two letters, during one life
time-the word $50 in the New Tesla
ment passage, God so loved the
world" Augustine made a longe pause
after the verse, put We on the Lord
Jesus Christ" and il converted him.
Matthew Henry made a long pause af-
ter the verse. open Thou my lips, and
my mouth shall show forth Thy praise, p"
and it converted 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 meditatively to
pause in reading two of the 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. / some
times hear people boasting about how
MANY times they have read the Bible