My dear readers, I believe we would all agree that Noah’s Ark stands at the very heart of Noah’s story. And precisely because of that, the Ark itself becomes God’s prophetic message to future generations.
In earlier times, people would sometimes throw a bottle containing a message into the sea, not knowing when, where, or by whom it would eventually be found and read. This is the image I have when I think of Noah’s Ark. The prophetic message is hidden inside this story, and our task is to “unseal” it in order to understand what God intended to say through it.
Noah himself probably did not fully understand the prophetic meaning of his own story—just as the person throwing a bottle into the sea does not know who will one day discover it. But God knew. He cast this sealed Ark into the waves of history for us to open and read.
And as we open this ancient message today, what do we find inside?
To Pitch or to Atone?
First of all, I would like to share once again that astonishing secret of the Ark—the sod (secret) that we discover only when we read its description in Hebrew. When God instructed Noah how to build the Ark, He commanded him “to pitch it within and without with pitch.” In English, this sounds like a purely technical instruction, and most readers probably never give it much thought. However, when we read the verse in Hebrew, we unexpectedly encounter the root כפר (kafar: kaf-pei-reish): “vehafarta ota mibait umihutz bakofer.”
If you know even a little about Israel or Hebrew, you probably know what Yom Kippur is, and therefore recognize the root כֹּפֶר. All the meanings associated with this root have to do with atonement—or so we usually think. Yet Yom Kippur, as well as the entire concept of atonement, will only appear much later in Scripture. Why then is this verb used here, in the story of Noah?
We do not find the word “atonement,” or anything directly connected to atonement, in the translated text. So what is happening here? Why does this extraordinary root appear in the Hebrew text—and then disappear in translation? This word is far too significant, too deep, too important for all its future redemptive meanings to be ignored.
Turn with me to a dictionary, if you will, and once again you may find yourself overwhelmed—as I was, and continue to be—by the incredible depth of His Word and His language.
In one of my previous posts, commenting on another example, I wrote:
“The verbs in Hebrew are derived from roots, most often by changing vowels and adding different prefixes and suffixes, thus forming different stems. Depending on their stem (binyan), verbs from the same root can have very different meanings. Nevertheless, because they originate from the same root, they still share something essential; they are connected to the same underlying essence.”
We should especially remember this principle here, because in this case we find two verbs derived from the same root, yet carrying seemingly very different meanings:
- כפר (kafar) in the qal stem — to cover or pitch with pitch
- כיפר (kiper) in the piel stem — to atone, to pardon
Thus, this seemingly technical command—“you shall pitch it within and without with pitch”—in Hebrew sounds almost like a theological declaration.
Of course, we all know that the Flood and the Ark are great symbols of judgment and salvation: punishment of the wicked and deliverance of the righteous. Yet without Hebrew, we completely miss something that is evident in the original text: the story of Noah is already, from its very beginning, a story of atonement.
The root “to atone” is there from the first description of the Ark itself.
Moses’ “Ark”
There is yet another remarkable hidden connection in the Hebrew text—one that most readers never notice in translation.
The salvation of Moses is, of course, one of the best-known stories in Scripture. Yet very few people realize that the “basket of reeds” in which the infant Moses floated on the Nile is called in Hebrew by exactly the same word used for Noah’s Ark: תֵּבָה (tevah).
In fact, this word appears nowhere else in the entire Hebrew Bible.
To us, Noah’s enormous ark and Moses’ tiny basket seem completely incomparable. It is therefore understandable that translators chose different English words for them. And yet Scripture itself intentionally uses the very same Hebrew term for both.
Why?
Apparently, the biblical text wants us to see a profound connection between these two stories.
Both Noah and Moses were saved from the waters by God in a tevah.
Both emerge from judgment and death into a new beginning.
And both become instruments through whom God brings His revelation to humanity.
Through Noah, God preserves humanity and reestablishes the foundations of human life after the Flood. Through Moses, God gives His Torah and establishes His covenant with Israel.
The connection is therefore far deeper than a simple literary parallel. In both stories, the tevah becomes a vessel of salvation, preservation, and divine purpose.
Once again, the Hebrew text quietly reveals hidden layers that are almost impossible to see in translation.
God Remembered Noah
You probably know that many ancient Near Eastern cultures also preserved stories about a great flood. Moreover, there are striking similarities between these stories and the biblical account: the ark, the birds, the flood itself, and other details.
And yet, we instinctively sense that the biblical narrative is profoundly different from those ancient legends. Is there a way to demonstrate this difference by examining the literary structure of the Hebrew text itself?
Today, I would like to introduce you to a beautiful literary device known as inverted parallelism, or chiasm. The term comes from the Greek letter chi, which looks like the letter X. A chiasm is a literary structure in which a sequence of ideas is presented and then repeated in reverse order. For example, the structure ABBA presents two ideas repeated in reverse sequence. Sometimes a chiasm contains a central element, creating a structure such as ABXBA. In such cases, the central element becomes the focal point—the most important idea in the entire passage.
Some chiasms are very simple. Benjamin Franklin’s famous saying, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail,” is a classic example: the ideas appear and then reverse themselves.
Scripture contains many chiastic structures—both in poetry and prose, in Hebrew as well as in Greek.
Why was chiasm so important? We live in a visual culture, but ancient people lived primarily in an audible culture. Literary structures like chiasm helped listeners remember the boundaries and structure of a passage: where it began, where it ended, and what stood at its center. Chiasm functioned almost like an auditory architecture.
In this sense, the story of the Flood is one of the longest and most magnificent chiasms in the Torah. The Flood chiasm begins in Genesis 6:10 and concludes in Genesis 9:19—and the parallels throughout the narrative are extraordinary.
But the most striking detail of this chiasm is its centre.
Its centre is Genesis 8:1:
“And God remembered Noah.”
As we already noted, the centre of a chiasm represents its main point, its theological and literary focus. And therefore, the biblical account of the Flood is far more than a prehistoric memory or a variation of an ancient folk legend. First and foremost, it is a story about God and man.
A man who walks in accordance with God’s will—and a God who remembers His righteous one.
This is the true centre of the Flood story.
And through this magnificent literary structure, Scripture quietly reveals the profound difference between the biblical account and all other ancient Near Eastern flood traditions.
If you like the insights on this blog, you might enjoy my books, you can find them here: books. As always, I would be happy to provide more information (also, a teacher’s discount for new students) regarding our wonderful courses (juliab@eteachergroup.com)
