Make thee an ark of Gopher wood
It is not called a ship, for it was not made for sailing to any
distant parts, but an ark or chest, being like one, flat
bottomed, and ridged and sloping upwards, and was made for
floating on the waters for a little way. So Lucian F3, and
other Heathen writers, call it (larnax) , "an ark" or "chest": this was made of
"Gopher wood", which all the Targums, and the more ancient
Rabbins, understand of cedar wood; some the box tree, as the
Arabic version; others, the pine; others, fir; the Mahometans say
it was the Indian plane tree; and others, the turpentine tree:
but the cypress tree bids fairest to be the wood of which, the
ark was made, as Fuller F4, Bochart F5, and
others F6 have shown; that being nearest to
"Gopher" in sound, and being a wood very durable and
incorruptible, and fit for shipping. Alexander made a navy of
cypress trees in the groves and gardens about Babylon, as Strabo
F7 relates: where this ark was made, is
not easy to say: some think in Palestine; others, near Mount
Caucasus, on the borders of India; others, in China: but it is
most likely it was near the garden of Eden, where Noah lived, and
not far from Ararat, where the ark rested. Bochart F8
conjectures, that "Gopher" is the name of the place where it was
made, as well as of the wood of which it was made; and that it
might be Cupressetum or Cyparisson, which Strabo F9 places
in Assyria. How long Noah was building the ark is variously
conjectured: a Jewish F11 writer says fifty two years; and an
Arabic writer F12 an hundred years; others think Noah
was building it the whole one hundred and twenty years
F13, the time of God's longsuffering
and forbearance, which some conclude from ( 1 Peter 3:20
) but though it would require not a few years to build such a
vessel, and prepare everything necessary for the use of it, yet
one would think it should not take so many years as the least
account gives unto it: it may be observed, the order is, "make
thou", or "for thyself" F14; for thy use and benefit, for the
saving of thyself and family, as well as for the preservation of
the several creatures which were for the service of him and his
posterity:
rooms shalt thou make in the ark;
or "nests" F15; little apartments, and many of
them for the several creatures, and for their provisions, as well
as for Noah and his family. The Targum of Jonathan gives us the
number of them, paraphrasing the words thus,
``one hundred and fifty cells shalt thou make for the ark on the left hand, and ten apartments in the middle to put food in, and five cabins on the right, and five on the left:''and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch;
it was pitched without to keep out the waters, and that they might more easily slide off, and to preserve the ark from being eat with worms, or hurt with the wind and sun; and it was pitched within, to take off the ill smell that might arise from the several creatures, as well as for the better security of the ark. Some take it to be bitumen, a sort of clay or slime like pitch, such as was used at the building of Babel, and of the walls of Babylon. De Dieu conjectures it was that kind of bitumen which the Arabs calls Kaphura, which agrees in sound with the word here used; but why not the pitch of the pine tree, or the rosin of the cypress tree, and especially the latter, if the ark was made of the wood of it F16?
F3 De Dea Syria.
F4 Miscellan. Sacr. l. 4. c. 5.
F5 Phaleg. l. 1. c. 4. col. 22, 23.
F6 Vid. Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. vol. 1. p. 35.
F7 Geograph, l. 16. p. 510.
F8 Ut supra. (Phaleg. l. 1. c. 4. col. 22, 23.)
F9 Ib. p. 508.
F11 Pirke Eliezer, c. 23.
F12 Elmacinus, p. 11. apud Hottinger, Smegma, l. 1. c. 8. p. 249.
F13 Shalshalet Hakabala, fol. 1, 2.
F14 (Kl) "tibi", Pagninus, Montanus
F15 (Mynq) "nidos", Pagninus, Montanus.
F16 Vid. Scheuchzer. p. 35.
