In the Noah’s Ark story, Noah was told to build the ark from gopher wood. The term appears in Genesis 6:14, where God instructs Noah to make the vessel from this named material and to cover it with pitch inside and out.
Gopher wood is a traditional English rendering of the Hebrew phrase ‘atsê gopher.’ The exact identity of the tree or timber is unknown. Because no surviving botanical identification is certain, translations and commentaries have proposed alternatives, but the biblical text itself does not identify a modern species.
The uncertainty has encouraged many guesses, including cypress and resinous woods. Those proposals are interpretations rather than established facts. The word ‘gopher’ in this context should not automatically be understood as the modern animal name; it is part of an ancient material term.
Pitch served as a sealant, helping prevent water from entering through joints. Genesis therefore specifies both the principal building material and a waterproofing treatment, while leaving the precise wood species unresolved.