Letter 28: An explanation of the Hebrew word Selah. This word, rendered by the LXX. διάψαλμα and by Aquila ἀ εί, was as much a crux in Jerome's day as it is in ours.
Letter 28: To Marcella (384 AD)
[An explanation of the Hebrew word "Selah," which appears repeatedly in the Psalms. The word — rendered by the Septuagint as diapsalma and by the translator Aquila as "always" — was as mysterious in Jerome's day as it remains in ours. Jerome surveys the competing theories: some take it as a change of meter, others as a pause for breath, others as marking the start of a new subject, and still others as connected to rhythm or indicating a burst of instrumental music. Jerome himself leans toward Aquila and Origen, who interpreted the word as meaning "forever," and suggests it functions as a marker of completion — analogous to the "explicit" or "feliciter" that scribes wrote at the end of sections in contemporary Latin manuscripts.]
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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