Place · City
Sela
Named in 3 verses across 2 books, first in Judges 1:36.
In the Bible
All 3 verses, in Bible order. Text from the Berean Standard Bible; verse numbers follow the KJV.
Judges
- Judges 1:36
And the border of the Amorites extended from the Ascent of Akrabbim to Sela and beyond.
Isaiah
- Isaiah 16:1
Send the tribute lambs to the ruler of the land, from Sela in the desert to the mount of Daughter Zion.
- Isaiah 42:11
Let the desert and its cities raise their voices; let the villages of Kedar cry aloud. Let the people of Sela sing for joy; let them cry out from the mountaintops.
Dictionary
From Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), as attached to this record by Theographic. Its geography and “modern” descriptions date from the 1890s. Easton wrote in 1897, and some of his views are now debated.
Read Easton’s entry
'=Se’lah, rock, the capital of Edom, situated in the great valley extending from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea (2 Kings 14:7). It was near Mount Hor, close by the desert of Zin. It is called “the rock” (Judg. 1:36). When Amaziah took it he called it Joktheel (q.v.) It is mentioned by the prophets (Isa. 16:1; Obad. 1:3) as doomed to destruction.
It appears in later history and in the Vulgate Version under the name of Petra. “The caravans from all ages, from the interior of Arabia and from the Gulf of Persia, from Hadramaut on the ocean, and even from Sabea or Yemen, appear to have pointed to Petra as a common centre; and from Petra the tide seems again to have branched out in every direction, to Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, through Arsinoe, Gaza, Tyre, Jerusalem, and Damascus, and by other routes, terminating at the Mediterranean.”