What is Gopher Wood? Do even the Supposed "Errors" in the Text Point to Christ?

Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch (ed. note, NKJV says "cover) it within and without with pitch. - Genesis 6:14 KJV

Noah was commanded to construct the Ark out of "gopher wood". The trouble is, this word "gopher" appears nowhere else in the bible. Nor is it a Hebrew word from anywhere else. Nor does it appear to be a word which was borrowed from languages which influenced Hebrew, though some ideas have been proposed trying to connect those dots. 

One of the most common beliefs is that it refers to cypress or cedar trees, trees which produce a lot of resin. The difficulty with that is that there is a Hebrew word for "cedar" and "gopher" isn't it. Instead, even today in southern Mesopotamia there are rivercraft constructed of sticks and leaves and reeds all twisted together and water-proofed and made fast by being covered by bitumen. They have a name, "kufr", which sounds much like "gopher" would be pronounced were the "g" exchanged for a "k" sound. So it seems like they named the boat for the substance that they used to make the boat- pitch. 

Speaking of exchanging a "k" sound for a "g" sound, it has been noticed that the Hebrew letters which we pronounce like "g" and "k" look very similar. Those letters are called the "gimel" and the "kaf". It would be easy for a transcriber or translator to mix those two letters up, turning the actual Hebrew word for bitumen (or pitch) into the unknown word "gopher". That's right, the word translated "pitch" at the end of Genesis 6:14 above is "kopher", just one similar-looking letter different than the word "gopher" which isn't translated at all because no one understands what it means.

What if the original used "kopher" in both places so that the text would read "Make thee an ark of pitch(ed) wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt cover it within and without with pitch."

The mystery would be solved. There is no such thing as "gopher wood", rather it was "kofer wood" and was referring to the material used to water-proof and bind the wood together rather than the type of tree from which it was taken. In other words, just like people in Mesopotamia today refer to boats made of pitched wood as "kufr", regardless of the type of wood used.

Now, it may be disturbing for some who hold a "high view" of scripture, as I do, to think that even one letter of the text has been altered. But what if the alteration wasn't a mistake, but a message? I think Moses wrote Genesis, but he had help in the form of tablets that were ancient even in his day. This is the "Tablet Theory" proposed by Wiseman. It answers the charge that Genesis was borrowed from earlier Sumerian and Babylonian accounts. The accounts from his ancestors that Moses used to compile early Genesis were also earlier and independent accounts. They may have even formed the basis for the Sumerian and Babylonian accounts instead of vice-versa. The very fact that an unknown word was put into the text is evidence that the children of Israel considered the accounts of early Genesis to have come from the distant past. Perhaps they didn't know what "gopher wood" was either, but they figured that their ancestors did!

The Christ-centered model for early Genesis which I lay out in my book claims that Genesis is a miracle. It is proof of the divinity of Christ and that scriptures are inspired by God because the text only makes sense when looked at through the lens of Christ and His work. This is just what He said the text was about (John 5:46) and as impossible as that sounds, it turns out to be true. This "mistake" may be just another example of that. 

Here is the text with the Hebrew from biblehub.com. Notice that while the KJV has the word "pitch" twice, the Hebrew actually has a somewhat different but related word there, which is translated here and in the NKJV as "cover" (left end of top line). Click on the picture if you want a larger view.

God told Noah that He was going to use Noah to establish His covenant. In the book I show how this is not just the one He made with Noah, but the one that He would make in Christ. Now look at what the word translated "pitch" means.... (Click on the picture if you want a larger view)

What did God want Noah to cover the ark designed to deliver them with? A word that means "the price of a life, ransom". In light of what God said about "establishing His covenant" through Noah, one would have to strain hard in order to avoid seeing how this is connected to the Atonement. Especially in light of what follows....here is the definition of the related word translated "cover" in the interlinear of 6:14 above...(click on picture for a large view)

So in order to "pacify" or "make propitiation" God wanted the ark covered with "the price of a life" or "ransom". To "make propitiation", cover inside and out (not just our outer man but our inner man) with "a ransom, the price of a life". Is anyone shouting "glory" yet? But it goes on...

It turns out the Hebrew letters mean things. The original first letter "kaf", represented "crown" as well as "palm". I am not making that up, the link describing "kaf" like that is from "Hebrew Today", not even a Christian source. These are two elements associated with the crucifixtion of course. But it also represents that the LORD was the rightful King of His people. Numerically, it represents "20", which is half of the number which represents trials, 40.

That letter, kaf, was exchanged for gimel. I believe by Moses as directed by his friend, the LORD God. No one knows for sure what gimel originally represented, except that numerically it is number "three". This also points to the work of Christ who was resurrected on the third day. But there is more. This letter is also associated with the Hebrew word "gomel". I will let the link from "Hebrew Today" tell you what this means...

The shape of the Gimel also reminds of us something else. It looks like a man in motion. A nice lesson from the Jewish teachings actually pertains to this aspect of the Gimel. In Hebrew, the word “gomel,” which begins with and sounds like the letter Gimel, means a “benefactor” or someone who gives to others. The letter after Gimel in the Hebrew alphabet is the letter Dalet, which is the first letter of the word “dal” meaning “weak.” According to this teaching, the Gimel, the benefactor, is walking towards the Dalet who is weak. 

Again, one would have to be very resistant to seeing it in order to not see it (but sadly, plenty are). The letter representing a "crown" is exchanged to one representing a benefactor who is rushing to help someone weaker. Christ is the one who gave up His crown to become a benefactor to us, who are weaker, and He rose again on the third day.

No matter how impossible you think it is that the accounts in Early Genesis could be true, as history and prophecy and not just spiritual allegory, there is nothing impossible for God. Not even this. We haven't understood the story of early Genesis correctly, but it's a true story. If you want to understand how these things could possibly be, a link to my book is below...

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John Walton is Both Right and Wrong on Adam and Eve

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Jeremiah 4:23 and the Formless and Void Earth

Jeremiah Chapter 4:

22 For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.
23 I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.
24 I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.
25 I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.
26 I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger.
27 For thus hath the Lord said, The whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end.
28 For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black; because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it.

Jeremiah 4:23 uses the same phrase as Genesis 1:2 to describe conditions on the earth. In the case of Jeremiah the context makes more clear that the word for earth (ertez) should be translated "land" which is an allowable meaning because this word does not necessarily refer to the entire globe even when prefaced by the word "kol" or "all". Because of the similar phrasing, those of the Cosmic Temple view of the creation account have said that Genesis 1:2 wasn't talking about the physical condition of the earth, except to say that it was wanton and lawless for the lack of God's words and law. The idea is that the "Creation Account" of Genesis one wasn't about creating anything in the material universe, but God setting up His religious system and temple very much like the pagan ANE religions around ancient Israel had done.

The Christ-centered model has a different view of the text than this. Not completely, but fundamentally. That is, the Cosmic Temple folks don't get all the details wrong, but they connect the details they get right to the wrong dots, presenting a false picture. If one only looks at the dots which they get correct, it seems pretty reasonable. When you look at all of the dots they connect, you find that they don't include all the dots they should and use some that they shouldn't to show an incorrect picture. But for now, let's just focus on this passage and the creation account.

What produced light in the creation account was the Word of God entering His creation. It isn't really speaking primarily, if at all, about solar illumination. This partly explains why the appearance of the sun is almost an afterthought regarding the days. The creation account is speaking about forming two realms at once using the same language, the arrangement of both the temporal and the eternal realms. So there is agreement in the Christ-centered model and the Cosmic Temple view that the words had a spiritual component. The disagreement is over what that message is and secondarily in what sense the words had a physical component. 

The Cosmic Temple folks don't reject concordism per se but the presence of concordism in the creation account. That is, they think the text is saying nothing about the material universe so there is no need to align the text with what science says happened in the material universe. They err by so doing. Strict or primary concordists would say it is mostly or completely talking about the physical universe. They also miss the big picture, though they err less than the Cosmic Temple folk do because the latter say it only has a spiritual meaning but then get that meaning wrong. In the Christ-centered model the text is secondarily talking about the material universe, but primarily the eternal realm where the work and person of Christ is the focus. So the creation account is talking about the natural universe, and it is scientifically correct when it does so, because it is inspired by God. But it is primarily talking about the eternal realm and the work of Christ- also because it is inspired by God.

Applying that train of thought to this passage, some would look at Jeremiah and say "so this is what scripture is saying when it says that the earth is formless and void, and that is well short of a molten earth with the sun still shrouded in a nebula".  They conclude that Genesis 1:1-2 is also speaking solely about the lack of a religious system being ordered.

There are at least two main problems with this view of the text. One problem is that the prophet is describing a vision, not something that is happening or has happened. You can tell this because earlier in the chapter God is talking about bringing the Assyrian to wreck havoc on the land. It is something that hasn't happened yet, but either will or could. He is describing what things will be like if God's Word is cut off from and lacking in the land. Conditions in the land locally will revert back to how they were in the earth before His Word entered the cosmos in Genesis chapter one. Reality is affected both spiritually and physically. I wrote about this in my book, how His Word brings order, life and illumination to our world, both physically and spiritually. Take away our connection to Him, and it unwinds into the gloom of night again.

But it does say in verse 27 that He will not make a "full end". So it seems that the prophet had a vision of the land going back to it's initial state, physically and spiritually, but the LORD said that He would stop short of that. The land will be made "desolate". That is a strong word, but it is short of what was described in the vision. Look up the meaning of the words for "formless" and "void" and compare them to the meaning of that used for "desolation". They describe a more primeval state than the latter. That He says "yet I will not make a full end" indicates that it won't get that far. Instead, terrible things short of that will happen- the land will be made desolate. As bad as it will get, it could have been worse. God could permanently withdraw His Word from the land, and worse things would happen physically and spiritually. It could go back to like it was before His Word entered the cosmos.

Further the text describes changes in the physical world which could fairly be viewed as the land losing physical form. So that fits with a concordist view of Genesis 1:1-2, it doesn't undermine it. The key is the prophet is not describing what happened in the physical realm, but a prophetic vision of what would happen, should God remove the light-bringing blessing of His Word completely from that place. Again, it would look like things did before He put His Word into creation. In conclusion, there is a model of early Genesis that does connect all of these dots, and when you do the picture is of Christ and His work.

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