Psalms 3:2

Selah— Various are the conjectures about the meaning of this word, says Dr. Chandler; but, whatever has been hitherto offered in explication of it, is no more than conjecture, and I am far from being able to satisfy myself or others about it. The reader may consult Noldius in his Annotations, p. 540 and Pfeiffer, p. 295. Bishop Bossuet, following the authority of the greater number of interpreters, translates it by the Greek διαψαλμα, and supposes that it implies some note or stop in music; but Parkhurst, after Fenwick, is of opinion with many other learned men, that it is inserted as a note requiring our particular attention: N.B. attend to, or mind this; literally, according to the root, strew, or spread it out; i.e. before the eyes of your mind, that you may thoroughly consider it. This interpretation is confirmed by Psalms 9:16 where the word Higgaion is put before Selah, at the end of the verse. Now הגיון Higgaion certainly signifies meditation, or a fit subject for meditation; and so shews סלה Selah to be really a nota bene. See Fenwick's Hebrew Titles on the Psalms, p. 112.