Gopher wood

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title: "Gopher wood" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["noah's-ark", "wood", "plants-in-the-bible", "plant-common-names", "cedrus", "cupressus", "biblical-studies"] description: "Biblical hapax and variety of wood" topic_path: "general/noah-s-ark" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_wood" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Biblical hapax and variety of wood ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Noahs_Ark.jpg" caption="''Noah's Ark'' by [[Edward Hicks]], 1846. Genesis 6:14 says that [[Noah's Ark]] was constructed from gopher wood."] ::

Gopher wood or gopherwood is a term used once in the Bible, to describe the material used to construct Noah's Ark. states that Noah was instructed to build the Ark of hbo ({{Script/Hebrew|גֹפֶר}}), commonly transliterated as hbo wood, a word not otherwise used in the Bible or the Hebrew language in general (a hapax legomenon). Although some English Bibles attempt a translation, older English translations such as the King James Version (17th century) leave it untranslated. The word is unrelated to the name of the North American animal known as the gopher.

Identity

The Greek Septuagint (3rd–1st centuries BC) translates the phrase as ἐκ ξύλων τετραγώνων (), , translating as . Similarly, the Latin Vulgate (5th century AD) rendered it as de lignis levigatis (lævigatis, in the spelling of the Clementine Vulgate), .

The Jewish Encyclopedia states that it was most likely a translation of the Akkadian term akk, , or the Assyrian ass, . Ancient and modern kuphar boats on the Tigris and Euphrates are also built of reeds, waterproofed with pitch. The Aramaic Targum Onkelos renders this word as arc, . The Syriac Peshitta translates this word as syc, (boxwood).

Many modern English translations favor an identification with cypress. This was espoused (among others) by Adam Clarke, a Methodist theologian famous for his commentary on the Bible: Clarke cited a resemblance between the Greek word for cypress, κυπάρισσος grc, and the Hebrew word hbo. Likewise, the Nova Vulgata (20th century) has it as de lignis cupressinis .

Others, noting the visual similarity between the Hebrew letters he () and he (), suggest that the word may actually be hbo, the Hebrew word meaning : thus hbo wood would be . Later suggestions for a dynamic equivalent of the word have included (to strengthen the Ark), or a now-lost type of tree, but there is no consensus.

References

References

1. "gopher". [[Online Etymology Dictionary]].
2. Brenton, Sir Lancelot C. L.. (1986). "The Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English". Hendrickson Publishers.
3. (1906). "Goper-Wood".
4. "The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon". Hebrew Union College.
5. Taylor, Paul. (2001). "What is 'Gopher Wood'?". Eden Communications.

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