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XLIX. Remarks on Mr. Carter's Paper on the Gopher-wood. 

 By Charles T. Beke, Esq. 



To the Editors of the Philosophical Magazine and Journal. 



Gentlemen, 



T OBSERVE that my paper on the Gopher-wood of Scrip- 



*- ture, which appeared in the Number of your Magazine 



for August last, has given rise to the observations upon the 



same subject, made by Mr. Carter in your last Number. 



That gentleman justly states my argument to be, that the 



word "13J (gopher) is probably the same as "133 (kophcr) ; 

 that Jcopher means pitch ; and that consequently the wood in 

 question would appear to be that of a pitch tree. 



The first of these propositions Mr. Carter allows to be 

 "highly probable"; but at the same time that he admits 

 gopher to be identical with kopher, and thus agrees with me 

 in all that I really contended for, he thinks it very question- 

 able that the latter word means pitch, as it is rendered in 

 the received English and all other authorized versions, for 

 the reason, principally, that the verb 133 (kaphar), from 

 which ~|9D (kopher) is plainly derived, is nowhere used in 

 Scripture in the sense of 'to cover or daub with pitch.' 



But this reasoning must surely have been adopted too 

 hastily; for Mr. Carter can never intend it to be his meaning 

 that a derivative word is not to be used in a secondary sense, 

 because the root to which it is to be traced cannot in every case 

 have attached to it the same secondary meaning as that of its 

 derivative*. Were it so, the use of kopher and its derivatives, 

 in the sense of ' to purge away or pardon' (Ps. lxv. 3.) ; ' to 

 atone' (Lev. iv. 35) ; ' to disannul or obliterate' (Isa. xxviii. 

 18.); 'a ransom' (Exod. xxi. 30.); 'a [covered?] bason' 

 (1 Chron. xxviii. 17.), or even ' pitch' ; — all of which meanings 

 have plainly a direct reference to the primary signification of 



* It is scarcely necessary to adduce any illustration of the consequences 

 of opposing what is, in fact, a fundamental principle of language : one ex- 

 ample presents itself, however, which is so very apposite, that I cannot refrain 

 from citing it. It is in the Latin verb tegcre, to cover, which besides its deri- 

 vatives tegmen, tegimen and tegumen, of which the meaning, generally, is 

 a ' covering', whether signifying in particular a 'garment', a 'hide', a 

 • shade', a ' shelter', &c, has also another derivative, namely, tcgula, 

 which word is exclusively applied to the article used for the covering of 

 dwellings : yet because not one passage in any author can be found in which 

 the verb legere has of itself the particular import of to tile', it would 

 certainly never be contended \\vdt, therefore, tegiila does not signify a tifc. 



