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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