Gofer-Wood

(Currently, I’m taking a class on the Zen Koan. I’ve long held the opinion that reading the Bible as if there were koans hidden in the text is a very useful thing to do. “Koan” translates as “public case” and is derived from the Chinese word for a judge’s bench. Most of the historical koan collections start with a story which sums up the actual koan, followed by a commentary, followed by a commentary on the commentary. The final commentary often takes the form of a poem. I’ve been incorporating some of the koan style into my published lectio divina reflections by following a pattern of first finding a “resonant phrase,” then writing a response in the form of a reflection, and finally “resting” in the understanding I’ve reached and writing a sort of poem to ‘cap it off.’ I intend to polish up this approach, because I have a notion that it will percolate through my daily life in very meaningful ways.)

Genesis 6:9-22

¹⁴ Make yourself an ark of gofer-wood;

God told Noah to build an ark from ‘gofer-wood’. Nobody knows what gofer-wood is, and the word gofer only appears that one time in the whole Bible. Very peculiar.

So the koan is: To build an Ark, gofer-wood is required. Where will you find it?”

Scholars have spent years trying to understand the meaning of “gofer-wood.” None of them succeeded. They don’t have a clue, but still they have opinions! —“It must mean this, it must mean that. It’s a scribe’s mistake. It’s in a different language. It sounds like another word that means reeds.”

There is something weird though. Even the most ancient versions show that the word ‘gofer’ was just as obscure way back then as it is now. Nobody ever knew what ‘gofer’-wood was!

Anyway, let’s go back and start with the word “ark.” —Latin “arca’; a large box or chest. PIE root *ark- "to hold, contain, guard" (source also of Greek arkos "defense," arkein "to ward off;) The word “arcane” comes from the same root, and originally meant "secret, hidden, private, concealed,"

Metaphorically speaking, this could be taken to mean that the only way for you to save the whole shebang from being washed away, dissolved, and lost forever, is to build a secret container to guard it, big enough to hold everything that ever was or will be. Trouble is, the only wood that you can possibly use to build it doesn’t exist. It never did, and it never will. Still, you plan this conceptual ark, knowing that it must be fabricated from non-existent wood.  You get busy constructing it; then you coat it with sticky, make-believe pitch in the effort to keep it watertight; and finally, you obsessively collect every kind of imaginary critter you can possibly think of and stuff them all into this leaky container, no matter how much noise and stink they make. Then you hunker down to wait out the flood, all the while convinced that you can hear the waves roaring and the wind howling. You might even believe you’re seasick, or that fleas are biting you. Sounds pretty miserable doesn’t it?

This gofer-wood is unbelievable!

It’s good for finishing as well as framing,

and it polishes up real nice.

Just one hit with the hammer to pound in a nail—

Now I think of it, I’ll bet it would make really good coffin-wood, too.