Selah. This word, used throughout the book of Psalms, is a profound directive. “It means to stop and think—ponder what was just read,” Gerald Flurry wrote. “God has impressed on my mind how important this word is and how it holds a wonderful key to effective Bible study” (“Selah—Stop and Think!”, Royal Vision, January-February 2023).
Learning to “selah” primarily means thinking deeply. It also means learning how to dig in deeply with our Bible study. “Often ‘selah’ is used as an indication that we need to do some digging and look outside the psalm,” wrote Mr. Flurry. “Search the Scriptures!” (ibid).
Technology can be a powerful tool to help us do that. “If there is something that you personally don’t understand well, you can get all the information you need by researching and digging into that topic. We have technology today that enables us to pull together extra material like this. We need to take advantage of that resource. If we use that technology properly, we can understand so much more and gain far greater depth in our study. You could say selah is especially for us in this end time because of that technology: You can easily find material that connects to the psalms. Then you will have received the most important education of all: self-education.
“Each person can get an education by getting help with technology or doing it yourself like our editorial department does. Men and women in our editorial department can so quickly find information in articles, books and videos—just about anything you can imagine. That’s a technology like we had never even imagined, and it is a great blessing to this Work because we have a small Church spread across this Earth, but we have a big message going around the world” (ibid).
Technology can help us “stop and think” about vital Bible passages. In this article we will use it to study Psalm 46. Three times, this psalm tells us to selah. How can technology aid our study?
Before we answer, it’s important to consider the dangers of misusing technology.
The Dangers of Technology
Used incorrectly, technology can actually be a considerable obstacle to “selah-ing.” A computer is an open door to an endless wealth of knowledge and powerful resources. It is also an open door to masses of distraction. An e-mail ping or a decision to just take care of that one thing we forgot to do, can prevent us thinking deeply.
For my personal study, I prefer to work primarily with old-fashioned paper: a paper Bible, a paper copy of a booklet or article, a paper notebook. I will open up my computer to use its resources, but I have to be disciplined about closing my e-mail and avoiding the temptation to “quickly take care of this one other thing.”
“You must have deep thought, deep analysis and long periods of concentration without fatigue in order to understand the enemy!” writes Mr. Flurry in How to Be an Overcomer.
Technology makes vast troves of other people’s opinion, study, thought and writing available to you. But so much of that is wrong. To use technology effectively, we must be able to pick only good sources.
Matthew 11:25 warns that the most educated of this world are deceived. “God’s truth is revealed—but only to babes!” Mr. Flurry writes in Isaiah’s End-Time Vision. He calls this “the most basic and difficult lesson we have to learn.”
Someone cannot understand God’s truth unless God is opening his mind to it. God reveals new truth only to apostles and prophets (Ephesians 3:5). And He will open other people’s minds to that truth, but only those who are submissive to God’s government.
That means there are many ideas of men that are just wrong. Even so-called Christian writers lack the humility to elevate the Bible above their own ideas.
Mining Church Literature
The Internet can lead us astray with wrong ideas. It can provide us with an endless number of rabbit holes to pursue our own ideas. But it also gives us an excellent opportunity to base our study on Church literature.
Hebrews 2:1 exhorts us to “give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.” God holds us accountable for the truth He has given us—and we must put in effort to study it, or we will forget it.
Stephen Flurry wrote that verses like this “admonish us to hold our minds toward and apply ourselves to the things we have heard before with more energy and greater frequency than any other subject. Our primary focus in personal study should be on the revelation God has already given to His Church. Earnestly heed and hold onto the trunk of the tree. Don’t get distracted by twiggy issues. God says if we don’t put the highest priority on the fundamental truths of His Word, those basics will slip away!” (“Are You Laodicean? Check for These 10 Signs,” Royal Vision, January-February 2023).
Searching for what God’s Church has written about a particular scripture can be a powerful tool. Internally at our Church offices, we have long had a tool that allows us to search our literature archives. If you are a member of the Philadelphia Church of God, you now have the same power. Search.pcog.org allows you to search through our archives. If you’re not a pcg member, you can do something similar by using a standard search engine to search our Trumpet site. Type in your search query followed by “site:theTrumpet.com,” and it will scan through all the Trumpet articles and most of our booklets.
Let’s turn now to Psalm 46. We can begin our study by reading the text itself and thinking on it. You’ll notice “Selah” concluding verses 3, 7 and 11. I suggest that you pause reading this article so you can read the whole psalm now.
What a powerful psalm! There is a great deal to ponder already.
Now, a logical next step in our study is to look at what the Church has written on it before. Mr. Flurry’s new book The Psalms of David and the Psalter of Tara is a great place to check. For that, if you don’t have a copy, you can visit theTrumpet.com, click on the “Library” tab, and you can find it (if it’s not in the “Showcase,” then choose “All” in the drop-down menu). Click on the title. On the book’s web page, click the “printable view” button. This gives you all the text of the book in an easily searchable format. Hit ctrl-F (or if you’re on a tablet or smartphone, poke around in the menus) to pull up the search function. Type in “Psalm 46” and you can find the one and only reference to that psalm in the book. Since it isn’t one of David’s psalms, there isn’t much here.
Search.pcog.org can help you find more. But if you just type in Psalm 46, the results aren’t very helpful: It pulls up a lot of material about the Psalms in general. Instead, put quotation marks around the whole thing: “Psalm 46.” This is better, but still the most helpful results aren’t at the top. Sometimes it’s helpful to limit your search only to booklets. You can use the “restrict categories” to do this. (You’ll have to click the drop-down arrows next to both pcg and wcg to select Booklets for each if you want results for both.)
If you have done that, you’ll see that The Eternal Has Chosen Jerusalem is one of the top hits. You can use the arrows at the bottom left of the screen to find where “Psalm 46” is mentioned in the booklet. The one reference tells us that Psalm 46 is a psalm that describes new Jerusalem “in poetic detail.” The fact that this psalm is talking about new Jerusalem is a key nugget that will really help you stop and think about it!
You can do something similar using a search engine to search theTrumpet.com.
Marking up your Bible can also be a helpful tool to accomplish something similar. While reading The Eternal Has Chosen Jerusalem, you could note that nugget in the margin of Psalm 46 to remind yourself when you next study it.
This happens to be a psalm that God’s Church doesn’t have an abundance of material on. How else can we use technology to aid us?
Other Electronic Helps
Let’s return to the subhead of Psalm 46. It states, “To the chief Musician for the sons of Korah, A Song upon Alamoth.” Alamoth is an odd word. What does it mean?
This is where a concordance or Bible dictionary can be handy. There are some advantages of using print versions of these. If you find your word in a massive tome, you are likelier to remember what you discovered.
But the electronic tools are easy and convenient, allowing you to do far more research in less time. It is so quick that I rarely go back to a physical concordance.
BlueLetterBible.org is one of the easiest tools to get started with as you don’t have to install anything—although eSword and other Bible apps are also helpful.
If you go to the website and type in “Psalm 46,” you should get a King James version of the Psalm. Next to each verse is a menu labeled tools. If you are on a computer, hover over that button next to verse 1 (if you’re using a tablet, you’ll have to adjust a little). Then click on Interlinear. You’ll now see a list of all the Hebrew words used in verse 1, and their English translation. Scroll down to “Alamoth.” In the next column it will list the Strong’s number. Click that number (h5961) and you will see a definition. You will also see other useful information, such as where else the same word is used and how it is translated. In this case it tells us that the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon defines Alamoth as “to (the voice of) young women, either literally, or of soprano or falsetto of boys,” and it gives some scriptural references. This suggests that this word provides direction on how Psalm 46 was to be sung—though we may not know everything involved in this way of singing today.
Being able to look up the original Hebrew is very helpful for understanding the Bible and stopping and thinking about it. Click back to the prior page with the Interlinear text, for example, and you can see that the word “God” in Hebrews 46:1 is translated from the Hebrew Elohim. This puts the whole psalm in a “God Family” context.
Verse 1 states that God is our “refuge” and “strength.” In the Bible, there are no redundant words. Both words are used here for a reason. Look into both Hebrew words and confirm that one is about finding shelter and safety, while the other is about might and power. Doing this can help us think more deeply about how God fulfills both functions for us.
“Very present” is an odd phrase in English. Surely someone is either present or absent. What does “very present” mean? Digging into the Hebrew adds some color to the words, but “very present” is a reasonable translation. But still, digging in like this helps us think more about why God would emphasize His presence in times of trouble. God can often seem vague to people. But God wanted extra emphasis: When you’re in a trial, I am right there. I’m not just present, like the people around you, I’m very present, intensely focused on what you’re going through.
This psalm directs us to stop and think after just three verses. Verses 2 and 3 describe all the chaos and calamity that may be going on—yet the psalmist does not fear. In times of crisis, do we want to purge fear? Getting to know this “very present” God is the way.
Used like this, these electronic helps can lead us to think more deeply about what we are reading. As we stop and think and make other connections, they can continue to help us. “Often ‘selah’ is used as an indication that we need to do some digging and look outside the psalm,” wrote Mr. Flurry. “Search the Scriptures!”
One obvious place to turn as we consider Psalm 46:1-3 would be Daniel 3. Here Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were thrown into a fiery furnace—and God was right there with them, “very present.” We can search Church literature on the phrase “fiery furnace” and find what Herbert W. Armstrong wrote about this in What Is Faith? and what Mr. Flurry wrote in Daniel Unlocks Revelation.
Tools like Blue Letter Bible can help us look for more examples.
Perhaps the start of Psalm 46 brings to mind Peter walking on water. While he focused on Jesus Christ, he wasn’t bothered by the turmoil around him. But once Christ stopped being “very present” to Peter, he began to sink. Studying this passage may be a good idea as we “stop and think,” but what if you don’t know offhand where it is? You could go back to the search bar in Blue Letter Bible and type “Peter water.” It will quickly find Matthew 14:28-29.
We can also turn to search.pcog.org to find more material. Try typing “Peter water”~15 (just like that, with the quote marks). This searches for any article in which the words “Peter” and “water” occur within 15 words of each other. It’s a handy trick for filtering out articles that cite the book of Peter, or the subject of water baptism, for example. A little ways down we come across a 2022 Royal Vision article, “Be Filled With God’s Spirit!,” by Stephen Flurry. This article states, “As long as his eyes were on Christ, Peter didn’t sink. His faith was strong. His attitude was positive. But the moment he began looking around at the storm, he began to doubt—and then sink (verses 29-30).”
This adds to the psalm. We have a responsibility to fill our minds with Christ—to make Him “very present” in our lives—to focus on that presence. Only then does the noise and rage of the storm recede into the background and no longer make us afraid.
That article gives us more scriptures we can turn to. Galatians 2:20 tells us that Christ lives in us. We may be reminded of Isaiah 59:1-2, which tells us that sin separates us from Christ. If we have sins we are not dealing with, God will not be “very present,” and we will be fearful.
As you stop and think, many more examples and quotes may come to mind.
Cross-Referencing
Returning to Psalm 46, we can continue reading the next section, verses 4-7, ending in another “Selah.” There is much to stop and think about in the text itself. The psalmist first writes about seeing God in trials, then immediately jumps to talking about new Jerusalem. Why the connection? Having a vision of the majestic future to which everything today is leading and the plan God has placed in motion for the universe brings us incredible stability.
Verse 6 gives an opportunity to utilize another useful tool: “The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted.” What can we stop and think of here?
Go back to the Blue Letter Bible tools menu next to verse 6, and this time select Cross-Refs. This brings up The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. This is a reference tool produced by unconverted men, and thus subject to error. But its purpose is simply to point you to other related Bible verses, minimizing the risk of man’s faulty ideas slipping in. It will at times make mistaken connections, and it will miss others. But it can be very handy for finding other parts of the Bible that discuss the same subject.
Here you see three parts of the verse, each with relevant scripture references. Under “earth melted,” one verse it points us to is 2 Peter 3:10-12. This is indeed an excellent companion passage. It talks about the Earth being in turmoil and being dissolved, in context of new Jerusalem. (If you go to 2 Peter 3, you find that verse 14 mentions us being “found of him in peace” in the same context—closely related to the relaxed faith described in Psalm 46.)
2 Peter 3:11 asks, Knowing that all will be dissolved and new Jerusalem is coming—how ought you to behave? That is a direct challenge: How will this truth change your life? This prompts us to examine our relationship with the material world. Do we really see that everything physical will be burned up? This ties right back into the first part of Psalm 46. If we are close to the world, Christ won’t be “very present” in our lives. But if we see everything material as temporary, unworthy of great investment of our time and attention, then we will draw close to God and have more faith and peace. We can be reminded of Abraham, who looked for a sure city and saw his physical surroundings as temporary (Hebrews 11:9-10). This in turn could prompt us to look into The Epistles of Peter—A Living Hope, The Book of Hebrews and The Eternal Has Chosen Jerusalem. If we want to survive the turmoil ahead without giving ourselves a heart attack from stress or fear, we must build this new Jerusalem vision.
Stopping and thinking on the other aspects of this passage can help us build this vision. Psalm 46:4 talks about streams of living waters that bring joy to God’s city. A search of “Psalm 46” river brings up a True Education article by Ryan Malone titled “The Last Great Day and Life-Giving Waters” that points us to a wealth of material on the role rivers play in new Jerusalem. Digging into this subject truly can bring our vision of new Jerusalem to life.
Translations and Commentaries
Psalm 46:5 states, “… God shall help her, and that right early.” That is some odd phrasing. Does “right early” mean very early? Or is there more to it?
Blue Letter Bible has another helpful tool here. Hover over the tools menu and now click Bibles. You can see how the same verse is worded across a range of different translations. Generally other versions translate this as “the break of day” or “the morning dawns.” This helps us see more clearly what this verse is saying: A time of light will soon dawn, and God will save His people right at the beginning.
Commentaries can also be a useful tool, but also a dangerous one. They are written by uninspired men, cut off from God and His Spirit. Never look to them for doctrine. But they can help us understand the historical context or the linguistic meaning of a particular phrase in the same way that commentary on Shakespeare may help clarify a phrase in common use 500 years ago but now forgotten.
Again, you can use physical commentaries, which have some advantages. But I like using eSword, as it syncs up the verse you are reading with what the commentary has to say about it. Lange’s Commentary can be useful. The Jamieson, Fausset and Brown Commentary is easy to use and easily available. Gerald Flurry has praised Charles Spurgeon’s The Treasury of David on the Psalms.
In this case, Lange’s notes, “The expression is: of course, figurative” though it is “an allusion to a definite historical fact”—or rather, a specific moment in time. Spurgeon painted a colorful picture: “As soon as the first ray of light proclaims the coming day, at the turning of the morning God’s right arm shall be outstretched for His people.”
But Spurgeon also brought out some more points about the river in new Jerusalem: “The great fear of an eastern city in time of war was lest the water supply should be cut off during a siege; if that were secured, the city could hold out against attacks for an indefinite period. In this verse, Jerusalem, which represents the church of God, is described as well supplied with water, to set forth the fact that in seasons of trial all sufficient grace will be given to enable us to endure unto the end.”
He didn’t see the full picture this psalm is painting. This is why we began by digging into what Mr. Flurry had written about Psalm 46. That way we’re not drawn off course by Spurgeon’s comment that Jerusalem here represents the Church. We can learn a more precise lesson with the full picture in mind. But the historical detail about the importance of a secure water supply helps magnify our picture of new Jerusalem and gives us more material to stop and think about.
Stop and Think
You now have a wealth of material to help you “stop and think” about the rest of this psalm. In his article, Mr. Flurry wrote: “God is trying to get us to think like He does. That is a lofty standard! It takes a lot of thinking! But oh, how wonderful it makes your Bible study. You can fall in love with the Bible! If your attitude is like that of these psalmists, you really will.”
Thinking this way depends most of all on your relationship with God—your prayer, your study, putting Him first in your life, and obeying His commands. But some of these tools can be an opportunity to dig deep in your Bible study and unearth some real gems. Mr. Flurry called this technology “a great blessing to this Work.” Not everyone will be able to take advantage of it. That is OK: Generations of saints have had epic, in-depth, inspiring Bible study without it. But if you have the capacity to use it, you may find that these tools truly can help you stop and think.