LandonWillis

Category: Etymologies

  • What Is The Peshitta/Syriac?

    In the footnotes to some Bibles, you’ll find references to the “Syriac Text” of the Old Testament.

    Well, what is that?

    The “Syriac Text” typically refers to something called the Peshitta (more on that later). However, “Syriac” can be more general than that.

    Hebrew, Aramaic, and Syriac

    So, the Old Testament was written almost entirely in Hebrew. But, a few sections were actually written in a language called Aramaic. Hebrew and Aramaic are very similar languages. Think of how Spanish and Italian are similar to each other because they both come from Latin.

    Now, Aramaic was originally the language of the Aramaeans, who were from the country of Aram. The Old Testament talks about these guys a lot.

    Aram was located in what we now call Syria. After the Assyrians conquered Aram, the region began to be known as Syria.

    Once the Assyrians controlled this area though, Aramaic, the language of Aram, began to spread as a common language throughout the Middle East.

    By the time of Jesus it seems that Hebrew was mainly reserved for religious speeches and writings, while Aramaic was the language of the everyday man. So, the main language of Jesus’ day was Aramaic.

    Great. Simple so far.

    Now, what about Syriac?

    Well, Syriac was a dialect of Aramaic that the people in Syria spoke. Think about how the English spoken in Australia is different from in Britain is different from in the United States. We all speak English, just different dialects of English.

    This just means that the people up in Syria were speaking Aramaic slightly differently than the people down in Judea (the dialect in Judea we call “Palestinian Aramaic”). For some reason, scholars decided to make this into a big deal.

    So, remember. Hebrew and Aramaic are similar but different languages (like Italian and Spanish). Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic (like Australian English versus British English).

    Syriac Translations

    Old Testament

    Syriac only started to be a really recognizable dialect by around the time of Jesus in the First Century. However, at some point in either the First or Second Century, some people who spoke Syriac began to translate the Old Testament from Hebrew into Syriac.

    Most scholars agree that these translations started in the city of Edessa, just north of modern Syria. Specifically, many scholars think that Jewish converts to Christianity made the translations (scholars have done some fancy analysis of different handwriting styles to make that guess; it’s not important, just roll with it).

    So, at some point in the first couple centuries, some Christians in Edessa probably made translations of the Old Testament from Hebrew to Syriac. This would make it easier for everyone to learn from the Scriptures in their own language, so that’s good.

    New Testament

    But, around the same time, translations of the New Testament from Greek to Syriac also began to be made. The earliest specific translation we know of is something called “Tatian’s Diatessaron”.

    Diatessaron comes from a Greek word meaning “out of four”. Basically, Tatian took the four Gospels (all originally written in Greek), Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and he lined up their timing to make one, single Gospel. So, this Diatessaron, made “out of four” Gospels, would show the story of the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ in a single, clear narrative. I don’t know why Tatian did this. Maybe he just wanted to have the Gospel all in a single story, instead of having to refer to four different Gospels that say the same thing in different ways.

    But, the important thing for us is that Tatian wrote his Diatessaron in Syriac around the year 170 AD. This is the earliest translation of the New Testament to another language that we know of (there might have been some other earlier translations; we just don’t know of any specific examples).

    We also don’t technically have any copies left of the Diatessaron in Syriac. They were all lost or destroyed over time. The best we’ve got are some later translations of it to other languages.

    Either way, this kicks off our records of translations of the New Testament to Syriac. We have two more manuscripts (rediscovered in the 1800s) which show translations of the Gospels into Syriac from around the 200s or 300s AD. These two documents do contain parts of all four distinct Gospels, not just Tatian’s combined telling of the Gospel story.

    Vetus Syra

    So, we’ve talked about translations of the Old Testament to Syriac, Tatian’s Diatessaron, and two more translations of the four Gospels dating from around the 200s or 300s.

    Collectively, we refer to all of these old Syriac translations as “the Old Syriac” (man, wouldn’t you love it if everything was that simple?). Now, some scholars also call these translations the “Vetus Syra”. Vetus Syra is just “Old Syriac” in Latin. Latin was the language of scholars for a long time, so that name just kind of stuck.

    Peshitta

    Alright, so that leads us into the big point of this article: the Peshitta.

    At some point, probably in the late 300s or early 400s, some scholars decided that they needed a new translation of the Bible in Syriac. The older translations might have been poor quality, or the scholars might have just wanted to make a standardized translation in Syriac that everyone could agree on.

    Either way, by the 400s AD, there was a new, standardized translation of the whole Bible into Syriac. Well, technically not the whole Bible. These Syriac-speaking Christians did not use the Books of 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, and Revelation. But, they did make a translation of the whole Old Testament and the 22 remaining books of the New Testament.

    When talking about this standardized translation, scholars always focus on one man: Rabbula, Bishop of Edessa. This guy, Rabbula, did not like Tatian’s Diatessaron one bit. He ordered that all the churches throughout the region get rid of the Diatessaron and replace it with the four Gospels.

    It seems that, to go along with this, Rabbula either ordered for the new standardized translation to be made, or he actually made the translation himself. However, many scholars think that work on the translation was already started some time in the 300s.

    But, What Does Peshitta Mean?

    This new, standardized translation to Syriac had a couple special things about it.

    First, it was written in pretty simple to understand language and was a very well known, common translation among Syriac speakers.

    Second, it wasn’t any sort of study Bible. Even after this standardized translation was made, there were still some other translations made into Syriac. One of them was the Syro-Hexapla (more on that another day), which used loads of marks and footnotes, like our modern Bibles, to show where translations could be different. This standardized text, however, was very simple; it had none of these markings or footnotes.

    So, for one reason or another, scholars began to call this translation the “simple version” or the “common version”. And that’s what the word Peshitta means in Syriac, “simple” or “common”.

    The first record we have of people calling this the Peshitta is from around the late 800s AD.

    Also, this isn’t the only translation of the Bible to be called “simple” or “common”. In Latin, the term Vulgata also means “common”. That’s why we call the Latin Bible the “Vulgate”.

    So, What?

    Alright, so that’s all really interesting (right? this is just fascinating, isn’t it?). But, why does it matter?

    Well you see, the oldest complete copy of the Old Testament we have in Hebrew dates from 1008 AD. That’s really, really late compared to when the Old Testament was written.

    But remember, Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic. And Aramaic is very similar to Hebrew. So, by looking at the older Syriac translations of the Old Testament, we can confirm that the Bible has been copied and translated correctly over the millennia.

    Our oldest Syriac translations of the Old Testament are from around the 400s and 500s, and our oldest complete copy is from the 600s. Using the Peshitta, modern translators can make sure that they translate what the Bible originally said, even if some later scribes accidentally copied down the wrong word here or there.

    Translators use this same idea with other old translations of the Bible, like the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate. But, since Syriac is so similar to Hebrew, we can get an even more precise understanding of certain passages by using the Peshitta.

    Other Notes

    There’s one other thing I wanted to mention just because I thought it’s kind of funny.

    In the New Testament, there are a few sections where the authors explain that Jesus said this or that Aramaic phrase (like on the cross, when he says Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?, meaning “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).

    But, in the Peshitta, it doesn’t explain these phrases… because the Peshitta is written in Aramaic for Aramaic speakers. It wouldn’t make any sense to explain the term.

    If the Peshitta did explain these terms, it would be like me saying to you “This is a dog. Dog is the English word for dog.”

    I just found that little detail funny.

    Summary

    Alright, so we looked at how Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic. In the first couple centuries AD, some people (probably Christians in the city of Edessa) translated much of the Old and New Testaments into Syriac. Then, in the 400s, the Peshitta translation became the most popular, standardized version of the Syriac Bible. Peshitta is just the Syriac word for “simple”.

    I hope that helps make things clear.

  • What Was The Hexapla Of Origen?

    Origen was an early Christian scholar. He was likely born around 185 and died around 254.

    Of his many written works, there is one that is extremely fascinating to Bible translators: the Hexapla.

    Hexapla is just the Greek word for “six-fold”. We refer to this work of Origen as the “Hexapla” because it contains six different columns, side by side, each with a different translation of the Old Testament.

    Purpose

    Origen’s goal was apparently to verify that the Septuagint was still a faithful translation of the original Hebrew Old Testament.

    So, the most important column is the one which lists the Septuagint translation. He added lots of notes and markings to this column to make it clear where he felt the Septuagint failed to properly translate the original Hebrew.

    Timing

    Now, we don’t know exactly when Origen started on this monumental work (and yes, it was a MONUMENTAL work; he basically had to handwrite the entire Old Testament six times over). But scholars typically agree that he finished by the year 240 and that it must have taken at least 20 years to complete. So, he probably started on this project in the 210s or early 220s.

    One issue with this is that he didn’t have access to the original copies of the Old Testament (they were all long gone by the time he was born). Even though he had older texts than we do, he was still working with copies of copies.

    That again ties in with the whole reason he created the Hexapla. By comparing several different translations with the best Hebrew manuscripts he can get, he would be able to compare them and come to the most likely conclusion of what the original text likely said. This is exactly what modern Biblical scholars do when preparing to make a new translation into English or any other language.

    In fact, because of this, some say that Origen’s Hexapla was the first ever Interlinear Bible.

    The Columns

    As for the columns themselves, remember, the purpose was to ensure that the Septuagint remained as accurate and faithful to the original Hebrew as possible. Every column aside from the Septuagint is there just to help you understand the proper and correct reading. They also all work together to allow you to reconstruct the original Hebrew text.

    Each of the six columns on each page contains the same few verses of scripture, just in a different translation for each column.

    Caveat

    We’ll go into a detailed analysis of each column in a moment, but first, I need to make something clear.

    This great, revolutionary work that compiled translations? The Hexapla? A resource which sounds so beneficial to modern Bible translators?

    It no longer exists.

    Only one complete copy is ever known to have existed, the one created by Origen himself. In fact, there is a common joke told that ancient scholars didn’t believe that a single man could have written out such a massive text in his lifetime. Modern scholars estimate that the Hexapla was probably around 6,000 or so pages long.

    So, yeah, it wasn’t the easiest thing to make a copy of. To do so would require you to handwrite the entire Old Testament six times over in different translations.

    The Hexapla remained in the city of Caesarea Maritima (the city where Origen compiled it and also an important city in the New Testament) for hundreds of years. Many ancient scholars referenced it and used it for their own projects. Jerome, the translator of the Vulgate, wrote about how he used the text when translating the Vulgate.

    We don’t know exactly what happened to the Hexapla, but it seems that it was lost sometime in the early 600s during the wars between the Byzantines and the Persians and the Muslims.

    Anyhow, scholars have managed to reconstruct a decent chunk of the Hexapla by finding a couple small fragments, looking at quotations made by ancient historians, and especially by referencing translations like the “Syro-Hexapla” which translated parts of the Hexapla into other languages.

    Following is the general consensus about the six columns of the Hexapla.

    Column 1

    The first column simply contained the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. Nice and easy.

    As far as I can tell, there’s nothing especially interesting about the Hebrew text Origen used.

    Column 2

    The second column contained the Hebrew text transliterated into Greek letters.

    To give an example, an English transliteration of Greek would be like if I gave the Greek to John 1:1 as  Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος and then gave the same Greek phrase using English letters instead of Greek letters: En archē ēn ho Logos.

    The purpose of this column was probably just to help people unfamiliar with Hebrew know how to pronounce the words. That’s just my speculation though.

    This column is usually known as the Secunda of Origen by scholars. Secunda is the Latin word for “second”. So, this refers to the “second” column of the Hexapla.

    Column 3

    Now, we finally get into a Greek translation of the Hebrew. The third column contains the translation made by Aquila of Sinope.

    Aquila’s translation is an extremely literal, word for word, translation of the Hebrew into Greek.

    It makes sense why the word for word translation would be placed right next to the Hebrew text columns.

    Column 4

    The fourth column is the Greek translation of Symmachus. This is a very “meaning for meaning” translation, like most of our modern English Bibles.

    Column 5

    This is the really important column. It’s a version of the Septuagint filled with notes and marks where Origen believes that the translation has diverged from the Hebrew.

    Since this was the column that ancient scholars copied and translated the most, it’s also the one that modern scholars have reconstructed best.

    Column 6

    Finally, there was the Greek translation of Theodotion. This was less so a translation and more so Theodotion fixing up the Septuagint to align more closely with the original Hebrew.

    Basically, Theodotion’s translation was a smaller attempt to do what Origen is doing with his Hexapla, to make the Septuagint a more faithful translation of the Hebrew.

    Final Notes

    There you have it. The Hexapla.

    Before summarizing everything we went over, though, I should also point out that there are some variations of Origen’s Hexapla.

    Apparently, Origen also made a Tetrapla (four-fold), which contained just the last four columns, no Hebrew.

    And, to complicate matters, several ancient writers, but especially Eusebius, tell us about how Origen used other translations as well for certain Books of the Old Testament. Because of this, sometimes the Hexapla is also called the Heptapla, Octapla, or Enneapla (seven-fold, eight-fold, or nine-fold).

    Eusebius writes a neat story about Origen finding another Hebrew manuscript in a clay jar outside of Jericho. Along with other translations, he apparently had a total of nine columns for the Book of Psalms.

    Some of that stuff is disputed, but most scholars can wholeheartedly agree on the existence of the six columns that we discussed above.

    Summary

    Anyhow, that covers the Hexapla of Origen. It was a MASSIVE work done by Origen in the early 200s AD where he laid out six (or more) columns of the Old Testament, two columns of Hebrew and four of Greek. The text was lost by the mid-600s AD. But, through extensive work, modern scholars have reconstructed what some of it might have looked like.

    That was a lot. I hope it helped you learn something new.

  • What Does Akeldama Mean?

    In Acts 1:18-19, we read:

    18 (With the payment he received for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out. 19 Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)

    However, before we dive into that word, Akeldama, we have to look at how Matthew records the death of Judas. This is the only other place in the Bible that describes Judas’ death and this “Field of Blood”.

    We see in Matthew 27:3-8

    3 When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. 4 “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood”…

    5 So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.

    6 The chief priests picked up the coins and said, “It is against the law to put this into the treasury, since it is blood money.” 7 So they decided to use the money to buy the potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners. 8 That is why it has been called the Field of Blood to this day.

    So, both Matthew and Acts are clearly telling the same story, but they both only give a few sentences of information. Because of this, the two stories don’t clearly line up. There are multiple explanations for the exact timing of events because these are both just short summaries.

    I don’t care to get into the exact arguments for the order of events with Judas’ death right now, but just know there are a handful of them. For example, many people think he probably hanged himself and then his corpse eventually rotted and fell to the ground, “bursting open” his body.

    Anyhow, let’s focus on this word Akeldama. As Acts 1:19 tells us, the people of Jerusalem called this field Akeldama “in their language”.

    Which language is that? Aramaic. Aramaic is a language very similar to Hebrew.

    Akeldama is from two words in Aramaic which together make the phrase “Field of Blood”.

    Acts 1:19 actually gives us the Aramaic word before then giving the translation in Greek (because, remember, the New Testament was written in Greek).

    Matthew just gives the translation “Field of Blood”.

    There’s a lot of history and archaeology that goes along with the Akeldama, and there is even a pretty popular guess as to where the field is located today.

    But, overall, the word Akeldama is Aramaic for “Field of Blood” and is the name given to the field where Judas killed himself.

  • Casting (And Sprinkling) Aspersions

    Aspersion is a fun word in English.

    It comes from the Latin word Spargere, which means “to scatter” or “to sprinkle”. Its most common definition is to insult or doubt somebody, as if you were “scattering” insults on them.

    We typically use the word “cast” before it in a sentence. For example, I could say “after eating, he cast aspersions on the restaurant’s cleanliness”.

    However, there’s also another use of the word.

    Remember how Spargere in Latin could also mean “to sprinkle”? Well, in English the original meaning of the word “aspersion” was “a baptism by sprinkling water”. So, if you hear about some Christians who had a priest sprinkle water on their newborn, that’s called an aspersion.

    This meaning is directly related to the other original meaning for “aspersion” in English: the sprinkling of Christ’s blood. Since baptism references Christ’s death and resurrection, it makes sense that we would use a similar word to describe it.

  • Why Is It Called The ‘Passion’ Of Christ?

    Around Easter time, you’ve probably heard people talk a whole lot about the “Passion of Christ”. Obviously they’re talking about His torture, crucifixion, and death.

    But, why do we call it His “passion”?

    Well, our earliest records show that the word “passion” entered the English language around the year 1200. During this time, the only meaning of the word had to do with Jesus’ crucifixion.

    It comes from the Latin word passio, which itself is another form of the Latin verb pati, meaning “to suffer” or “to endure”. So, the passion of Christ is literally “the suffering of Christ”.

    That Latin word, pati, is also where we get the word “patience”. If you are being patient, then you are literally “suffering” or “enduring through” something. You can also think of patients in a doctor’s office. A patient is someone who is suffering from some sort of illness or injury.

    The confusion for modern English speakers comes from the fact that the word passion took on a new meaning around the year 1400. At that time, it started to more commonly mean “an intense emotion”. Think of how you might describe someone as “passionate”. This is from a connection to the Greek word pathos, which also meant “suffering”, but took on a second meaning of “emotion”.

    And since the French language comes mostly from Latin, it gives us many of our words which come from Latin. So, before William the Conqueror of France invaded England in 1066, “English” was still mainly a Germanic language. Because of this, Old English had a similar word to “passion” back before William the Conqueror’s invasion: þolian.

    That Old English word gives us the rarely used modern English word “Thole”.

    Thole means the same thing as passion: suffering.

    So, the next time you hear about “the passion of Christ”, you can know that it really just means “the suffering of Christ”. Or, if you want to use a very rare word, you can start talking about “the thole of Christ”.

  • Higgaion

    In Psalm 9:16, we read:

    16 The Lord has made Himself known;
    He has executed judgment.
    A wicked one is ensnared in the work of his own hands. Higgaion Selah

    This is the only place in an English translation of the Bible that you will find the word Higgaion.

    However, it does appear three other times (twice in the Psalms and once in Lamentations). The key distinction is that translators had trouble deciding how to translate it in this verse, so they just didn’t translate it and instead kept the Hebrew word: Higgaion.

    Well, how is it translated in the other three areas?

    For the most part, it’s translated as some form of “meditation” or “murmuring”, making the above verse possibly just mean that the reader should reflect on what was just said.

    Many scholars seem to think the word comes from the Hebrew word hagah, which means “to utter” or “to murmur”. That would make Higgaion literally mean “a murmuring”.

    Another option is that the word comes from an Arabic root which has something to do with a deep, vibrating noise. This theory is that when we see Higgaion in the verse above, it was an instruction for the Israelites to let a harp play a solemn little tune while everyone else stays quiet for a moment.

    If that option is true, it would likely be a good comparison to the English word “affetuoso”, which is a musical term for playing soft, tender notes.

  • Gittith

    In the heading to Psalm 8, we read:

    For the music director; on the Gittith. A Psalm of David.

    That word, Gittith, appears also in the headings of Psalm 81 and Psalm 84.

    There are two main theories about what the word means.

    The first, and far more popular, theory is that it comes from the name for the Philistine city of Gath. So, a Gittith would maybe be a type of harp or lyre made in Gath. One Jewish tradition even says that it was a specific instrument that David got when he was in Gath in 1 Samuel 21.

    Another theory is that the word Gittith does come from the word Gath, but in a different way. You see, the city of Gath is named from the Hebrew word Gath, which just means “winepress”. So, this theory goes that Gittith is some sort of melody associated with the grape harvest. Or maybe it’s in reference to treading on the enemies of God like a winepress.

    This theory seems far less likely. However, it does have one thing going for it. In the Ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (the Septuagint), the word Gittith is translated as “winepress”. The Vulgate translates it the same way in the late fourth century.

    Overall, we don’t know exactly what the word Gittith means, but the best guess thrown out is it was probably some sort of stringed instrument from the city of Gath.

  • Shiggaion

    In the heading to Psalm 7, we read:

    A Shiggaion of David, which he sang to the Lord concerning Cush, a Benjaminite.

    And in Habbakuk 3:1, we read:

    A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to Shigionoth.

    Do you notice the similarity between those two words: shiggaion and shigionoth? Well, that’s because shigionoth is just the plural form of shiggaion.

    Well, now you’re asking, what do either of those words mean?

    So far as I can tell, there are three main theories.

    Assyrian Shigu

    One theory suggests that the word shiggaion comes from the Assyrian word shigu, meaning “lament”.

    This could make sense because both Psalm 7 and Habakkuk 3 describe stories of lament and destruction.

    However, this does not sound like a very popular nor likely theory.

    It could fit in place with Psalm 7 as “a lament of David”, but it sounds weird in Habakkuk 3 that the song is sung “according to lament”. Typically, a word like that in Hebrew refers to some sort of musical term.

    Hebrew shagah

    Both of these other theories are based on the idea that shiggaion actually comes from the Hebrew word shagah, meaning “to make a mistake” or “to wander”.

    The second overall theory is that the word shiggaion essentially means “a mistake”. If this is correct, then the idea is that someone committed a mistake in both of the songs: Psalm 7 and Habakkuk 3.

    There are scholars who try to point out how each song shows someone making a mistake. One example is how some people argue that Psalm 7 indirectly talks about David making a mistake by being tempted to kill Saul or overthrow him by force.

    This theory doesn’t hold up too well overall, but especially not when it comes to Habakkuk 3. Saying that the song is “according to mistakes” just makes no sense, especially in the context of the chapter.

    The Likely Theory

    Now, there is one guess which seems to be the most popular and make the most sense.

    This theory goes that shiggaion does come from shagah. But it has an emphasis on the definition “to wander”.

    If shiggaion means something like “a wandering”, then it could just mean a song that is wild and goes all over the place in its tune.

    And, everyone who writes about this theory always compares the word to a very specific English word. So, I suppose that I’m obligated to do the same.

    Dithyramb.

    There.

    If you already know what the word dithyramb means, then good for you. I hope the comparison helps you understand shiggaion better.

    As for pretty much everyone else who, like me, has no clue what this word means, here’s the definition.

    A wild, impassioned song. Originally in reference to a song for the Greek god of wine and drunkenness, Dionysus.

    So, when translators and scholars say that the word shiggaion was likely a dithyramb, they mean that the song was all over the place. Fast here. Slow there. High pitched here. Low pitched there. Shouting here. Whispering there. Enthusiasm everywhere.

    In the end, this theory seems to make the most sense. The word shiggaion probably meant some sort of an impassioned, enthusiastic song. So, both Psalm 7 and Habakkuk 3 were probably sung in a specific, energized way.

  • Selah

    In Psalm 3:2, we read:

    2 Many are saying of my soul,
    “There is no salvation for him in God.” Selah

    We’re interested specifically in that last word, Selah.

    It appears 71 times in the Book of Psalms, and 3 times in the Book of Habbakuk in a song-like section. So, the only times it appears in the Bible are in connection with songs.

    Plus, of the 39 psalms in the Book of Psalms that are written “for the music director”, 31 of them contain the word Selah at least once. Many take this to mean that it was a word associated with musical instruction, rather than part of a sentence.

    Well, what does the word mean?

    That’s the fun part. We don’t really know. Selah has been a very complex and confusing word among scholars for thousands of years.

    We know it’s a Hebrew word, but that’s about where the agreement ends. The meaning of this word was lost so long ago that we have records of Christian and Jewish scholars in the first few centuries giving different definitions.

    But, there are a number of pretty good guesses as to what it probably means. So, let’s dive in.

    1. Calah, To Measure

    Plenty of scholars connect the word Selah with the Hebrew word Calah, which means “to hang” or “to measure”. (The meaning of “to hang” would be like how an ancient merchant would “hang” something on a scale to measure its weight).

    This theory goes that if the term Selah has a meaning related to “measure”, then it is used as a way to tell the reader to carefully measure/weigh/consider what was just said.

    It would basically mean something along the lines of “Hey, pay attention to what you just read; it’s really important”.

    The Amplified Bible translates it as “pause, and calmly think of that”.

    2. Salal, To Lift Up

    One of the most common theories I’ve read was that Selah is related to the Hebrew word Salal, which means “to lift up” or “to praise”.

    The main idea with this theory is that Selah is acting as an instruction either to the people to “lift up” their voices and sing loudly/shout or as an instruction to the musicians to play louder, maybe by smashing cymbals at that moment or blowing trumpets.

    If it were a direction to the musicians, it would be similar to our modern musical instruction “fortissimo”, which is Italian for “very loud”.

    Either way, according to this theory, the musicians or the singers (whichever it was) would take a pause from singing or playing while the other one “lifted up” their noise and praise.

    This leads into the next theory.

    3. Salah/Shelah, To Pause

    A few people also say that the word Selah just comes outright from the Hebrew word meaning “pause”. (I found conflicting sources about what exactly that word was, either Salah or Shelah).

    Because of the actual spelling in Hebrew though, most scholars say that this etymology is unlikely. Still, it is similar to the first two theories because all three have the idea of pausing in some way.

    This theory is also backed up by the Ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint. It translates Selah as Diapsalma (I’ve also seen the word called Daplasma in a couple articles). Diapsalma means, literally, “apart from the Psalm”. So, this at least lines up with the idea that Selah isn’t actually part of the writing itself. Some scholars use this to support the theory that it just means a pause.

    4. Section Break

    Another theory is just that Selah is a note letting you know that the topic is about to change. Most scholars don’t like this theory, especially because some Psalms end with the word Selah.

    Why would you say that the topic is about to change at the end of the song?

    Still, the theory tries to explain this away by saying that we only have fragments of some Psalms or that the Psalms were all meant to be read in order.

    5. Acronym

    This theory is that Selah is just an acronym of other Hebrew words.

    One Jewish tradition says that it stands for the phrase from Numbers 14:19 “Please forgive the sins of this people”.

    Most people don’t seem to like this theory too much either.

    6. Latin Semper, Always

    This theory is a touch complicated.

    When Jerome translated the Bible into Latin (called the Vulgate), he made one translation of each book, obviously…. except for the Book of Psalms.

    For Psalms, Jerome made three different translations, two from the Greek translation and one from the Ancient Hebrew.

    Plus, there are three different main versions of the Vulgate in existence today. And those versions are split between which of Jerome’s translations they use. Plus, the numbers of the Psalms don’t line up between English and Latin. For example, Psalm 3:2 is Psalm 3:3 in Latin, and Psalm 54:3 is Psalm 53:5 in Latin.

    So, all that to say, if you go looking for a Latin version of something in the Book of Psalms, be careful. It gets confusing and difficult really fast.

    Anyway, in Jerome’s translation from the Greek, he just uses the word Diapsalma, like in the Greek.

    But, in his translation from the Hebrew, he translates Selah as the Latin word Semper, which means “forever” or “always”.

    Aside from just Latin, several other ancient Jewish writings from the first few centuries after Christ say that the word Selah just means “forever”.

    Considering that all the other theories have to do with Selah being outside of the writing itself, this is a fun little theory. And since forever is such a versatile word, it could fit in place everywhere Selah appears.

    Conclusion

    In the end, Selah is a weird, confusing word. But, there are many scholars smarter than I who have studied this a whole bunch and have come up with the theories I listed above.

    I hope this helped you. Selah

  • What Does Prodigal Mean?

    In Luke 15:11-32, we read the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

    A man demands his inheritance from his father while still alive, then goes off and wastes all his money in a foreign land. Finally, he comes back home to his father to beg for forgiveness, and receives honor and love.

    But, why do we call this the story of the Prodigal Son? What does “prodigal” mean?

    Well, it means “wasteful” or “wastefully extravagant”.

    It comes from the Latin word prodigus, meaning “wasteful”. This, in turn, comes from the Latin verb prodigere, meaning “to use up” or “to get rid of”.

    So, this is the story of the “wasteful” son.

    We started calling the parable by this name back when Jerome (the man who compiled the Latin translation of the Bible known as the Vulgate back in the late 300s AD) decided to call it the parable of filius prodigus, “the wasteful son”.

    Since that’s the Latin word Jerome chose to use, some English speaking Christians eventually decided to call it the parable of “the Prodigal Son”.