Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VI/The Letters of St. Jerome/Letter 28

Letter XXVIII. To Marcella.

An explanation of the Hebrew word Selah. This word, rendered by the LXX. &#948;&#953;&#8049;&#968;&#945;&#955;&#956;&#945; and by Aquila &#7936;&#949;&#8055;, was as much a crux in Jerome&#8217;s day as it is in ours. &#8220;Some,&#8221; he writes, &#8220;make it a &#8216;change of metre,&#8217; others &#8216;a pause for breath,&#8217; others &#8216;the beginning of a new subject.&#8217; According to yet others it has something to do with rhythm or marks a burst of instrumental music.&#8221; Jerome himself inclines to follow Aquila and Origen, who make the word mean &#8220;forever,&#8221; and suggests that it betokens completion, like the &#8220;explicit&#8221; or &#8220;feliciter&#8221; in contemporary Latin Written at Rome 384.