Bitumen

Biblical Texts

Bitumen is a black, sticky substance resembling hardened crude oil. It corresponds to what is today called asphalt or pitch and was used to keep out water or to bind bricks together. In the New Korean Revised Version (Gaeyeok Gaejeong), the term appears in the following passages; the King James Version renders it as "pitch" or "slime."

• Genesis 6:14: God commands Noah to build the ark and to "pitch it within and without with pitch." Here it served as a waterproofing agent to keep the vessel from leaking.
• Genesis 11:3: The people of the plain of Shinar build a city and a tower, and "they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter." This is a scene from the account of the Tower of Babel.
• Genesis 14:10: The vale of Siddim "was full of slimepits," and the forces of the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fell into them as they fled. Genesis 14:3 identifies this valley as "the salt sea," that is, the region of the Dead Sea.
• Exodus 2:3: When the mother of Moses could no longer hide her infant, she took an ark of bulrushes, "daubed it with slime and with pitch," and laid it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile.
• Isaiah 34:9: Describing the judgment to fall upon Edom, the prophet declares that "the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch."

Original Language and Background

Several different Hebrew words are translated as bitumen. Genesis 6:14 uses kopher, while Genesis 11:3 and 14:10 use chemar. Exodus 2:3 contains both chemar and zepheth, and Isaiah 34:9 uses zepheth. Scholars differ somewhat in their explanations of exactly which substance each word denotes and how the terms differ from one another.

Archaeology has confirmed that in ancient Mesopotamia, where stone was scarce, natural bitumen was used as mortar for laying fired bricks. The description in Genesis 11:3 fits well with this building method of the Babylonian region. Bitumen has also been extracted around the Dead Sea since antiquity, and ancient Greek and Roman writers sometimes referred to the Dead Sea by a name meaning "Asphalt Lake."

Significance in Scripture as a Whole

Noah's ark and the ark of bulrushes that held Moses are both designated by the same Hebrew word, tebah. In the Old Testament this word occurs only in these two narratives. In both accounts bitumen serves as a means of preserving life upon the water, and many commentators have noted this parallel. In the account of the Tower of Babel, by contrast, bitumen appears as a building material for a structure that people raised to make a name for themselves. In Isaiah, together with brimstone, it becomes an image of fiery judgment.

The New Testament does not use the word bitumen. Noah's ark, however, is mentioned again in Hebrews 11:7 and 1 Peter 3:20–21 as an example of faith and salvation.

Interpretation and Points of Discussion

The word kopher in Genesis 6:14 is connected to a root meaning "to cover," the same root as the verb meaning "to make atonement." On this basis, some interpret the bitumen applied to the ark as a figure of the atonement that covers sin, or of the blood of Christ. This, however, is not something the text states directly; it is a figurative application that has arisen from preaching and devotional reflection. On linguistic grounds, some scholars hold that the same root is simply being used with distinct meanings. Explanations linking the bitumen pits of Genesis 14:10 to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah are also commonly repeated, but the biblical text does not directly connect the two.

In the Korean Church

In Korean preaching, bitumen is mentioned chiefly in sermons on Noah's ark. Preachers often draw the application that, just as the bitumen protected the ark within and without, God's grace and protection surround believers.