Gopher Wood

Gopher wood is named once in scripture, as the material specified for Noah's ark.

The Material of the Ark

When Yahweh instructs Noah to build the ark before the flood, the construction material is given precisely: "Make an ark of gopher wood. You will make the ark with a series of compartments, and will pitch it inside and outside with pitch" (Gen 6:14). The Hebrew word gopher is left untranslated in UPDV, and a footnote at this verse notes the underlying expression "nests [and] nests" for the compartments. Beyond this single instruction the term does not recur, so what kind of tree the ark was built from is left unidentified by the text itself — only that it was sealed inside and outside with pitch and divided into a series of compartments.