What does the pitch on Noah's ark (kopher, Genesis 6:14) have to do with atonement?
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Whosoever Will, Broken Open: God tells Noah, Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch (Genesis 6:14). The Hebrew for that pitch is kopher, and kopher comes from kaphar. Kaphar is the atonement word. It is the root under the Day of Atonement. Everywhere else in the Old Testament, kopher means a ransom, the price that covers a life. Genesis 6:14 is the one place it means the tar you smear on a hull. So the only thing standing between Noah and the wrath of God was a covering, and the word for that covering is the word for a ransom. Inside and outside, sealed. Noah did not survive the flood by being buoyant. He survived it by being inside something that had been covered. That is the whole doctrine of being hidden in Christ, drawn in tar on a boat, two thousand years before Paul wrote a word of it. The judgment came. It fell on the ark. Every wave that should have hit Noah hit the covered wood instead. Scripture, King James Version: Genesis 6:14, "Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.".
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Verified. Every scripture quotation on this page has been checked word-for-word against the King James text. Last reviewed 2026-10-18.
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What does the pitch on Noah's ark (kopher, Genesis 6:14) have to do with atonement? → wsb.bible/answers/what-does-the-pitch-on-noahs-ark-kopher-genesis-6-14-have-to-do-with
This answer is the short form. The argument is made at length in Broken Open: Pitch Within and Without.