of the Received Version of the Scriptures. 179 



celled by daubing with pitch, but that of covered from sight, 

 put away, not allowed to be enforced. 



The pitch obtained from wood could scarcely have been 

 known at that early age, in a country where, probably, as 

 now, whole pools of it existed, and it flowed spontaneously 

 from the earth, and when boats and ships (for which is its more 

 important use) could be very little known. 



Two other words are furnished by the language to express 

 the various kinds of pitch or bitumen then employed, the more 

 general term hemer signifying, among other things, red earth, 

 soil, or cement (from "1011, chamar or hamar, to redden), and 

 nDt {zepheth). Sulphur was expressed by DHQJ (gaphrith). 



The two latter words occur in Isaiah xxxiv. 9., and sulphur 

 and pitch or bitumen, are clearly, as expressed, severally in- 

 tended; " The streams shall be turned into pitch, the dust into 

 brimstone." Dense fumes charged with sulphur are sent forth 

 during volcanic eruptions, and it is found in abundance in 

 volcanic deposits. The elder Pliny was killed by such fumes. 

 Hemer is in a few passages employed to signify some other 

 tenacious soil or cement. Moses's ark of bulrushes was co- 

 vered with both hemer and zepheth ; but it was also used to 

 express bitumen. The pits in the vale of Siddim (now the 

 Dead Sea), into which the King of Sodom and others fell, 

 were of hemer, and pits of bitumen are still found there (Gen. 

 xiv. 10). The same was used (xi. 3.) in building the Tower 

 of Babel in the plain of Shinar to the east of Babylon, and 

 bitumen is known to have been used in the buildings of Ba- 

 bylon. (Dion. Cass. lib. 68.) The notion of red might be taken 

 from the lighter petroleum, which is of a reddish brown, ap- 

 pearing on the surface. 



The Hebrew word which expressed to atone, atonement, 

 expiation, and also the mercy-seat of pure gold over which the 

 Divine glory appeared, were forms of the same word Kopher. 

 There is in Hebrew no paucity of terms having the like im- 

 port of a covering; and that a word should have been selected 

 for these great and revered objects, with the meaning of a 

 sliming over of pitch, seems far from probable. 



Trees that we know yield pitch are, moreover, very often 

 referred to in the Hebrew Scriptures. Of fir, t#i*Q verowsh, 

 or ni-Q vcrowlh, (the 0, sh, being, as in the instance of Gopher, 

 changed to another letter of the like organ, D, th,) as well as 

 cedar trees, a very large number were obtained for Solomon's 

 Temple; and that rcrowsh was truly fir wood, appears highly 

 probable from the use made of it. Solomon built the walls 

 '2 A 2 



