In the biblical Noah's Ark story, what wood was Noah told to use?

In the biblical Noah's Ark story, Noah was told to build the Ark from gopher wood. Genesis 6:14 instructs him to make the vessel from “gopher wood,” a term whose exact botanical meaning is not known.

The Hebrew expression appears only in this passage of the Bible, making it a rare or possibly specialized word. Because there is no surviving agreement about which tree it identified, translations have generally preserved the phrase rather than replacing it with a confidently identified species.

Several proposed identifications have appeared in commentary and translation history, including cypress and other resinous or durable woods. None is universally accepted. “Gopher wood” therefore functions as the standard answer to the biblical wording, while the underlying species remains uncertain.

The text also says that the Ark was to be divided into compartments and coated with pitch inside and outside. Those details describe construction and waterproofing, but they do not solve the botanical mystery of gopher wood. Claims that the word definitively means one modern tree go beyond what the passage establishes.