Gopher

(pitch) wood. Only once mentioned -- (Genesis 6:14) Two principal conjectures have been proposed --

1. That the "trees of gopher" are any trees of the resinous kind, such as pine, fir, etc.
2. That Gopher is cypress.

Gopher

The name of the wood of which the ark was built. Many suppose it to be the cypress; others, the pine. Gopher may probably be a general name for such trees as abound with resinous inflammable juices, as the cedar, cypress, fir-tree, pine, etc., Genesis 6:14.

GOPHER WOOD

go'-fer wood (`atse ghopher): The wood from which Noah's ark was made (Genesis 6:14). Gopher is a word unknown elsewhere in Hebrew or allied languages. Lagarde considered that it was connected with gophrith, meaning "brimstone," or "pitch," while others connect it with kopher, also meaning "pitch"; hence, along both lines, we reach the probability of some resinous wood, and pine, cedar, and cypress have all had their supporters. A more probable explanation is that which connects gopher with the modern Arabic kufa, a name given to the boats made of interwoven willow branches and palm leaves with a coating of bitumen outside, used today on the rivers and canals of Mesopotamia. In the Gilgames story of the flood it is specially mentioned that Noah daubed his ark both inside and out with a kind of bitumen.

See DELUGE OF NOAH.

E. W. G. Masterman

A tree from the wood of which Noah was directed to build the ark (Genesis 6:14). It is mentioned only there. The LXX. render this word by "squared beams," and the Vulgate by "planed wood." Other versions have rendered it "pine" and "cedar;" but the weight of authority is in favour of understanding by it the cypress tree, which grows abundantly in Chaldea and Armenia.

1. (n.) One of several North American burrowing rodents of the genera Geomys and Thomomys, of the family Geomyidae; -- called also pocket gopher and pouched rat. See Tucan.

2. (n.) One of several western American species of the genus Spermophilus, of the family Sciuridae; as, the gray gopher (Spermophilus Franklini) and the striped gopher (S. tridecemlineatus); -- called also striped prairie squirrel, leopard marmot, and leopard spermophile. See Spermophile.

3. (n.) A large land tortoise (Testudo Carilina) of the Southern United States, which makes extensive burrows.

4. (n.) A large burrowing snake (Spilotes Couperi) of the Southern United States.

1613. gopher -- gopher (a kind of tree or wood)
... << 1612, 1613. gopher. 1614 >>. gopher (a kind of tree or wood). Transliteration:
gopher Phonetic Spelling: (go'-fer) Short Definition: gopher. ...
/hebrew/1613.htm - 6k

1614. gophrith -- brimstone
... Word Origin from the same as gopher Definition brimstone NASB Word Usage brimstone
(7). brimstone. ... see HEBREW gopher. << 1613, 1614. gophrith. 1615 >>. ...
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