Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #17 of Genesis, chapter 6 and we are going to read Genesis 6:14-16:

Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.

I will stop reading there. The Lord is getting specific concerning the construction of the ark. He is giving Noah commandment regarding what type of wood to use and the dimensions of the ark, and so forth. Of course, in telling Noah these things God is also painting a picture of the Gospel program. The “ark” is a type and figure of God’s salvation. That is certain. We know that is the case because it was through the ark that the eight souls (Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives) were saved and delivered from the wrath of God. Very clearly, the ark represents salvation. More than that, it represents the Lord Jesus Christ who purchased salvation for His people, so we would expect that there would be aspects to the ark that would tie in with God’s salvation program. And that is exactly what we find when we look at the language the Lord uses, beginning in Genesis 6:14:

Make thee an ark of gopher wood…

This is the only place in the Bible you will find the word “gopher” or “gopher wood.” There are a lot of references in the Bible to various types of trees or wood and, yet, this is the only place God uses the word “gopher wood.” If we look at the Jay Green Interlinear Bible, he calls it “cypress timber” or “cypress wood.” That is incorrect. That is not a literal translation and that is what the Interlinear Bible attempts to do, but this is definitely not a correct translation, nor is it a literal translation of the word translated as “gopher.”

The word translated as “gopher” is Strong’s #1613. There is a Hebrew word in the Bible translated as “cypress” and that word is Strong’s #8645 and it is far from the word “gopher.” It is a completely different word that has no connection to the word God used.

Normally, Jay Green’s Interlinear is very good, but not in this case. And, actually, in the publication I have of that interlinear it also gave the wrong Strong’s number for the word “gopher” as Strong’s #7613, instead of #1613. You will find this happens on occasion – they are misprints or mistakes in recording the Strong’s number. The correct number for our word is Strong’s #1613 and there is no way we should translate it as “cypress” and it is not a literal translation of the word.

The King James translators seemed to have just transliterated the Hebrew word, so they just called it “gopher wood.” It is not oak or pine or any of those woods, so there is just this one particular instance where God uses this special wood and it is the wood He commanded Noah to use for the ark. When a word is used only one time in the Bible, it is very difficult to determine a spiritual meaning because we are to compare Scripture with Scripture and we look at other places the word is used in the Bible and that helps us with a Biblical definition.

However, we are assisted in this case because there is a related word, Strong’s #1614. It is the feminine of our word, Strong’s #1613 (go-fer). Strong’s #1614 is the word “gof-reeth” and it is translated several times as the same word and it is very interesting. It is a word used in Genesis 19:24:

Then JEHOVAH rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from JEHOVAH out of heaven;

The related word (gof-reeth) is the word translated here as “brimstone.” It is translated this way several times. It says in Deuteronomy 29:23:

And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah…

Also, it is used in Isaiah 30:33:

For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of JEHOVAH, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.

Again, this word “brimstone” is a related word to our word translated as “gopher” where God speaks of “gopher wood.” We wonder what brimstone, which represents the wrath of God, has to do with the construction of the ark that would deliver the elect people of God in the days of Noah. Again, because the ark is a picture of God’s salvation for His people, it really is a vessel that is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Those within that ark made of brimstone, we could say, will be protected from the judgment. It ties in because Jesus had to undergo the wrath of God; He had to experience “brimstone,” in that sense, as God punished Him for the sins of the elect. In order for His people to find refuge and deliverance in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, Christ had to go through the wrath of God and “fire and brimstone,” as it were, had to be poured out upon His Son Jesus.

So, making the ark of “gopher wood,” a wood that identifies with brimstone, is letting us know that this ark designed to deliver God’s people had to be the work of Christ in going through the “fire.” He had to pay the penalty of death that the Law of God required. In a very interesting way, God commands Noah to make an ark of gopher wood and then He says in Genesis 6:14:

… rooms shalt thou make in the ark…

The first thing we tend to consider when we think of “rooms” is what the Lord Jesus Christ said concerning His Father’s house: “In my Father’s house are many mansions.”

The word “mansions” is a word that means “abode” or “dwelling,” like there are many dwellings within a house. When people dwell in a house, they dwell in rooms, so that seems to fit as God commands Noah to make “rooms” in the ark. And, yet, there is a Hebrew word that would be the typical word for “rooms,” but God did not use that word in our verse. Our Hebrew word is Strong’s #7064 and it is normally translated as “nest.” It is translated as “nest” in Deuteronomy 22:6:

If a bird's nest chance to be before thee in the way in any tree, or on the ground, whether they be young ones, or eggs, and the dam sitting upon the young, or upon the eggs, thou shalt not take the dam with the young:

It also says in Deuteronomy 32:11:

As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings:

Again, the word “nest” is our word translated as “rooms.” It is curious and a little puzzling why God did not tell Noah to use a different type of wood that was more common, rather than a type of wood that identified with brimstone. And why did God tell Noah to build “nests” within the ark? It is possible that because there would have been many creatures on the ark, nests would be fitting for some of them, but there were many animals on the ark that were not birds, so it is curious and interesting why God would command Noah to build “nests” in the ark. We suspect it has to do with a spiritual meaning and in Psalm 84 we get a little bit of help concerning this word translated as “nests.” It says in Psalm 84:1-3:

How amiable are thy tabernacles, O JEHOVAH of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of JEHOVAH: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O JEHOVAH of hosts, my King, and my God.

In these verses we see that God associates the sparrow and the swallow with his house and his altar. Let me read, again, verse 3: “Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O JEHOVAH of hosts, my King, and my God.” The “nest” is identified with the altars of God and the altar ties in with the Lord Jesus Christ. It says in Revelation 6:9:

And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:

This refers to the elect that are in their soul existence in heaven and they are “under the altar,” which represents Christ; they are covered by His blood and His sacrifice and, therefore, they are protected under that altar. So, the swallow’s nest is related the altars of the Lord, where sacrifices were performed. The “nest” has to do with the kingdom of heaven and having a place there: “In my Father’s house are many mansions.”

Also, when we think of birds, like eagles, they build their nests on high. They build them high in a tree or high in a mountain and in that sense it is a picture of the kingdom of God which is in heaven. For instance, it says in Obadiah 1:3-4:

The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high; that saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground? Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith JEHOVAH.

In this case, the Lord is faulting Esau, a picture of the corporate church and the unsaved people that profess to be Christian. In their profession they think they are children of God and they think they have been exalted into heaven through salvation, but God says they are not and He will “bring thee down.” The end of the church age was just that – God brought them down and destroyed them when judgment began at the house of God.

But notice that when they exalt themselves the figure the Lord uses He says, “though thou set thy next among the stars,” and stars can typify the body of believers. In the Bible we know that God does use stars to represent His people. Abraham’s seed would be as the stars of heaven for multitude, so establishing one’s nest in the stars is like someone attempting to say, “Well, I am a child of God. I have salvation.” However, they are brought down because they were never truly saved and, yet, their “nest among the stars” does relate to the kingdom of heaven because they are trying to say they are part of the kingdom of heaven. The problem is that they are not.

In our verse in Genesis 6:14, it says, “Nests shalt thou make in the ark.” They are “nests” that identify with a home in the stars and, therefore, identifies with the kingdom of heaven itself. So God tells Noah to make an ark of gopher wood. Through Jesus experiencing the wrath of God through fire and brimstone, there will be a vessel of safety for those elect that Christ died for and their home or nest will be with the kingdom of God on high.