Genesis 6:14

Gen. 6:14. "Make thee an ark of gopher wood." The word in the Hebrew language seems to imply that the wood was of a bituminous or pitchy nature, and consequently more capable of resisting wet or moisture, and St. Chrysostom particularly calls it ζυλα τετραλωνα ασηπτα, square wood not liable to rot. The learned Fuller rightly concludes it to be the cypress, from the affinity of the word for cypress in Greek, which is Κυπαρισσος; from whence, if the termination is taken away, Cuphar, or Gopher, consists of such letters as are often changed into each other; neither is there any wood less subject to rottenness and worms than this is, as all writers do allow. Pliny saith that the cypress wood is not sensible of rottenness or age, that it will never split nor cleave asunder except by force, and that no worm will touch it, because it hath a peculiar bitter taste; and therefore Plato advised that all records that are to be preserved for the benefit of future generations, should be written upon tables of cypress. Martial says that it will last for a hundred ages and never decay. Thucydides saith that the chests were made of cypress in which the Athenians carried away the bones of those who died in war for their country, and the Scholiast gives this reason for it, because it would never decay; and the Pythagoreans abstained from making coffins of cypress, because they certainly concluded that the scepter of Jupiter was made of this tree, and no reason can be assigned for such a fiction among the poets, but because it was the fittest resemblance of that eternal power and authority which they attribute to him. Theophrastus, speaking of those trees which are least subject to decay, adds this as a conclusion, that the cypress tree seems to be the most durable of all, and that the folding-doors of the temple of Ephesus being made thereof, had lasted without damage for four generations. In this Pliny is more particular, and saith that those doors were made of cypress, and they had lasted till his time, which he saith was near four hundred years, and still looked as if they were new. And Vitruvius speaks both of the cypress and of the pine tree, that they kept for a long time without the least defect, because the sap, which is in every part of the wood, hath a peculiar bitter taste, as is so very offensive that no worm or other consuming animal will touch it. He also tells us that such works as are made of such wood will last forever. And therefore he advises that the beams of all churches should especially be made of cypress wood, because such as were made of fir were soon consumed by the worm and rottenness; and as it was such a lasting wood, so it was also very fit for the building of ships. Peter Martyr, as cited by the learned Fuller, saith that the inhabitants of Crete had their cypress trees so common, that they made the beams of their houses, their rafters, their rooms, and floors, and also their ships, of this wood. Plutarch saith that the ship-carpenter in the first place useth the pine from Isthmos, and the cypress from Crete; and Vegetius adds, that the galleys are built chiefly of the cypress, and of the pine trees, or of the larch and fir; and in the epistle of Theodoricus to Abundantius, the perfect, in which he gives him a commission to build a thousand barks for fetching provisions, or bread corn; he commands him to inquire throughout all Italy, for proper artists, for wood for such work; and wherever he should find the cypress or pine trees near the shore, that he should buy them at a reasonable price. Neither was it thus only in Crete and Italy, but Diodorus proves that in Phoenicia there was timber sufficient to build ships, because Libanus, near Tripoli, and Biblus, and Sidon were full of cedar-trees, and larch-trees, and cypress-tress, which were very admirable for show and greatness; and Plato, among the trees that were fit for ship carpenters to use, places the cypress next to the pine and the larch-tress. And even in latter years, we are told that the Saracens did hasten from Alexandria to Phoenicia to cut down the cypress wood, and fit it for the use of the ships. And as the cypress tree was very fit for this use, so it grew in great plenty in Assyria and Babylonia, and therefore Arrian and Strabo speak particularly of it, and that the numerous fleet which Alexander the Great built in those parts, was made of the cypress which he cut down, and which grew in Babylonia. For there was, as they say, a great plenty of these trees in Assyria, and that they had no other wood in the country which was fit for such a purpose.

Bedford's Scripture Chronology, p. 111, 112, notes that the reason why they needed a sort of wood not subject to decay or rottenness, was chiefly because the ark was so long in building. Had it not been a kind of wood of extraordinary durableness, it would have decayed and spoiled in much less than 120 years, being exposed to the weather.

The country where Noah built the ark, was probably in Babylonia, or the region thereabout, which abounds with cypress or gopher-trees. The Gordyean mountains in Armenia seem to be at a proportional distance, and since they are allowed to be the highest in the world, there is no reason for receding from the commonly received opinion, viz. that those were the hills whereon the ark stopped. Here it is that the generality of geographers place the ark. Here it is that almost all travelers have found the report of it. And lastly, here it is that the inhabitants of the country show some relics of it, and call places after its name to this very day. Complete Body of Divin. p. 324.

" In Armenia est altior mons quam sit in toto orbe terrarum, qui Arath vulgariter nuncupartur; et in cacumine montis illius arca Noe post diluvium primo sedit; et licet propter abundantiam nivium, quae semper in illo monte reperiuntur, nemo valet illum ascendere; semper tamen apparet in ejus cacumine quoddam nigrum, quid ab hominibus dicitur esse Arca." Hist. Orient. c. 9.

The mount Gordion, called by the Turks Ardagh, is the highest in the world; the Jews, the Armenians, and the Mussulmans, affirm that the ark of Noah stopped at this mountain after the deluge. La Boulaye's Voyages. They tell us likewise that the city Nahsivan, which is about three leagues from the mountain Ararat, is the oldest in the world; that Noah dwelt therein when he came out of the ark; that the word Nahsivan is derived from Nah, which signifies a ship, and sivan, which signifies to stop or stay; and that this name was given to it because the ark stopped at this same mountain. Tavernier's Travels, tom. 4.