I have also included a table of English glosses reduced to their lemma form that someone working with Hebrew for the first time can use to find root words that they would like to look up. As an example, I have chosen the word selah (a friend asked me recently what this word signifies). It is more interesting than one might think.
First let's find its root. Using a dictionary is easy if you know the language, but you won't find selah under 'se'. You won't even find 'se'. And this is an easy one.
To find any root, take the English gloss, in this case, selah, go to the concordance page (upper right page link), look up the English using the find key on your browser and if you find it, you will see the root or possible roots that your gloss could be. I have kept overlap in my translation to a minimum, but there will often be more than one candidate for a gloss.
In this case, you will find the root is slh. And it's classed as a particle, a bit of grammar. People generally say that selah means rest or pause or musical interlude, etc. Let's examine this to see if it makes sense.
Step two, search in the concordance page for the post that has the words associated with 'sl', the first two letters of the gloss you just found. Click on the link and on the newly found page find selah. You will see something like this:
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| Root slh and its glosses and differing semantic domains |
The root is in the upper left corner of the table entry. On the page you will also see the column headings though they are not in the preview image above. There is an enormous amount of detail here.
- About selah itself, it occurs 74 times, in only 2 books, Habakkuk (3 times) and Psalms (71 times).
- Of those times, the musical signs in the text distinguish 5 different forms.
- It is sung on the tonic (silluq) and hyphenated ־סֶֽלָה in two psalms. (Both of these are at the end of a verse. One could ask why they are hyphenated.)
- It occurs on the subdominant (atnah), i.e. in the middle of a verse at the rest point, three times, twice in Habakkuk and once in the Psalms סֶ֑לָה.
- It occurs once on the supertonic, but this is not an ole veyored (a common cadence in the poetry books, often dividing a verse into three rather than two cola), rather it is a revia veyored. Nonetheless it is a midpoint rest in Psalm 55:20. סֶ֥לָה
- And the remainder of the times, probably at the end of each verse, it is again on the silluq. סֶֽלָה
- Why is the last one separated from the others? It has a dagesh in the samekh סֶּֽלָה. Otherwise it is identically used as in 4. One could again ask why there is a dagesh.
- There are other words associated with this root which I have glossed as suspend (once with basket) and spur. There's a story for each of these.
- Spur is used only in one book, Ezekiel, in two places. The story here is the challenge to avoid using thorn, thistle, or brier - to find a word that did not overlap with other words for this type of Planting.
- Suspend appears to be used in a sense of weighing or valuing something (Job 28).
- And it can be used to indicate a container, like a hanging basket (Jer)?
- And it occurs in two acrostics as a line for S. It is convenient for me that I chose a gloss that begins with S. Other translations assume this is unconnected to any sense of weighing or valuing. I don't think there is enough information to make such a distinction.
There is much to ponder here in the patterns of usage. As I said to my friend, I suspect we must 'suspend' our judgment here as to what it 'means'. Perhaps it is a spur to thinking, and a suspension - considering/valuing of our immediate thoughts (or a pause if suitable). Whatever it is, it is always sung as part of the music. In other words, it is not ignored even when it is not translated in the prosody of the Psalms.
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| Psalm 55:20, selah at a midpoint rest on the supertonic |
| Jeremiah 6 | ||
| כֹּ֤ה אָמַר֙ יְהֹוָ֣ה צְבָא֔וֹת עוֹלֵ֛ל יְעוֹלְל֥וּ כַגֶּ֖פֶן שְׁאֵרִ֣ית יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל הָשֵׁב֙ יָדְךָ֔ כְּבוֹצֵ֖ר עַל־סַלְסִלּֽוֹת | 't ch amr ihvh xbaot yoll iyollu cgpn warit iwral hwb idç cboxr yl-slsilot | 9 Thus says Yahweh of hosts, They will glean as a grape vine the residue of Israel. Turn back your hand as a grape-gatherer over suspended baskets. |
| Ezekiel 2 | ||
| וְאַתָּ֣ה בֶן־אָ֠דָם אַל־תִּירָ֨א מֵהֶ֜ם וּמִדִּבְרֵיהֶ֣ם אַל־תִּירָ֗א כִּ֣י סָרָבִ֤ים וְסַלּוֹנִים֙ אוֹתָ֔ךְ וְאֶל־עַקְרַבִּ֖ים אַתָּ֣ה יוֹשֵׁ֑ב מִדִּבְרֵיהֶ֤ם אַל־תִּירָא֙ וּמִפְּנֵיהֶ֣ם אַל־תֵּחָ֔ת כִּ֛י בֵּ֥ית מְרִ֖י הֵֽמָּה | v vath bn-adm al-tira mhm umdbrihm al-tira ci srbim vslonim aotç val-yqrbim ath iowb mdbrihm al-tira umpnihm al-tikt ci bit mri hmh | 6 And you, child of humanity, do not fear them, and from their words do not fear, when pricks and spurs are with you and on scorpions you sit. From their words do not fear, nor from their faces be in disarray, for a house of provocation they are. |
| Ezekiel 28 | ||
| בֶּן־אָדָ֡ם אֱמֹר֩ לִנְגִ֨יד צֹ֜ר כֹּֽה־אָמַ֣ר ׀ אֲדֹנָ֣י יְהֹוִ֗ה יַ֣עַן גָּבַ֤הּ לִבְּךָ֙ וַתֹּ֙אמֶר֙ אֵ֣ל אָ֔נִי מוֹשַׁ֧ב אֱלֹהִ֛ים יָשַׁ֖בְתִּי בְּלֵ֣ב יַמִּ֑ים וְאַתָּ֤ה אָדָם֙ וְֽלֹא־אֵ֔ל וַתִּתֵּ֥ן לִבְּךָ֖ כְּלֵ֥ב אֱלֹהִֽים | b bn-adm amor lngid xor ch-amr adonii ihvh iyn gbh libç vtamr al ani mowb alohim iwbti blb imim vath adm vla-al vtitn libç clb alohim | 2 Child of humanity, say to the herald of Tyre, Thus says my Lord Yahweh, Because your heart is haughty and you have said, A god I am. The seat of God I sit in, in the heart of the seas. But you are human and not a god, though you permit your heart to be as the heart of God. |
| Psalms 119 | ||
| סָ֭לִיתָ כָּל־שׁוֹגִ֣ים מֵחֻקֶּ֑יךָ כִּי־שֶׁ֝֗קֶר תַּרְמִיתָֽם | qik slit cl-wogim mkuqiç ci-wqr trmitm | 118 Suspended have you all who stray from your statutes, for falsehood is their deceit. |
| Job 28 | ||
| לֹֽא־תְ֭סֻלֶּה בְּכֶ֣תֶם אוֹפִ֑יר בְּשֹׁ֖הַם יָקָ֣ר וְסַפִּֽיר | 'tz la-tsulh bctm aopir bwohm iqr vspir | 16 She is not suspended in the fine gold of Ophir, with precious onyx or sapphire. |
| לֹֽא־יַ֭עַרְכֶנָּה פִּטְדַת־כּ֑וּשׁ בְּכֶ֥תֶם טָ֝ה֗וֹר לֹ֣א תְסֻלֶּֽה פ | i't la-iyrcnh p'tdt-cuw bctm 'thor la tsulh {p} | 19 She is not arranged by the topaz of Cush, nor in fine lustrous gold is she suspended. P |
| Lamentations 1 | ||
| סִלָּ֨ה כָל־אַבִּירַ֤י ׀ אֲדֹנָי֙ בְּקִרְבִּ֔י קָרָ֥א עָלַ֛י מוֹעֵ֖ד לִשְׁבֹּ֣ר בַּחוּרָ֑י גַּ֚ת דָּרַ֣ךְ אֲדֹנָ֔י לִבְתוּלַ֖ת בַּת־יְהוּדָֽה ס | 'tv silh cl-abirii adonii bqrbi qra ylii moyd lwbor bkurii gt drç adonii lbtult bt-ihudh {s} | 15 Suspended are all the mighty. My Lord near me has called against me an appointed place to break my chosen ones. In a vat my Lord has trodden the virgin daughter of Judah. S |
One more note: You can look up any English word in my glossary table. Many will give no result because I haven't used that gloss in my translation, but some might give an insight into what I have done. Take that word some. It is a very flexible modifier in English. What roots is it associated with in my translation? Is this significant? If some is used by itself, what does it modify? It is curious that given its generality, it will be found only 11 times in the glossary and some of those are related to longer words, something, someone, handsome, somewhat. The word some alone I generally use only with the stand-alone pronouns, alh and hm. But there are some entries where the generic use of some with more significant nouns has been eliminated by my lemma routine. If I had not used the lemma reduction process, the glossary would be too cumbersome to use.
To those of you who are studying Hebrew, I hope this is a useful resource. You don't need to agree with any of my own translations to make effective use of this as a learning tool. Of course, publishing something like this exposes a translation and all the decisions of the translator.
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