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Topic

Pitch

6 passages cited, from 4 classic reference works.

These works date from 1884–1915 and are in the public domain. They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently. The verses are shown in the King James Version, the wording these works were written against.

The verses

The passages the works cite, those cited by more of them first.

Genesis 6:14Easton · Smith · ISBE · Nave Used by Noah, in the ark (ship)
¶ Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.
Exodus 2:3Easton · Smith · ISBE · Nave In making the basket in which Moses was hidden
And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river’s brink.
Isaiah 34:9Easton · ISBE · Nave An opaque mineral used as a plaster and cement
And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch.
Genesis 11:3Easton · Smith
And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.
Genesis 14:10Easton · ISBE
And the vale of Siddim was full of slimepits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there; and they that remained fled to the mountain.
Isaiah 34:9–15ISBE
And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall…

In the reference works

Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897) · 5 references

(Gen. 6:14), asphalt or bitumen in its soft state, called “slime” (Gen. 11:3; 14:10; Ex. 2:3), found in pits near the Dead Sea (q.v.). It was used for various purposes, as the coating of the outside of vessels and in building. Allusion is made in Isa. 34:9 to its inflammable character. (See SLIME.)

Smith's Bible Dictionary (1884) · 3 references

The three Hebrew words so translated all represent the same object, viz., mineral pitch or asphalt in its different aspects. Asphalt is an opaque, inflammable substance which bubbles up from subterranean fountains in a liquid state, and hardens by exposure to the air, but readily melts under the influence of heat. In the latter state it is very tenacious, and was used as a cement in lieu of mortar in Babylonia ((Genesis 11:3) as well as for coating the outside of vessels, (Genesis 6:14) and particularly for making the papyrus boats of the Egyptians water-tight. (Exodus 2:3) The jews and Arabians got their supply in large quantities from the Dead Sea, which hence received its classical name of Lacus Asphaltites .

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 7 references

pich: The translation of the noun kopher, and the verb kaphar, in Ge 6:14 and of the noun zepheth, in Ex 2:3; Isa 34:9. In Ge 6:14 the words are the ordinary forms for "covering," "cover," so that the translation "pitch" is largely guesswork, aided by the Septuagint, which reads asphaltos, "bitumen," here, and by the fact that pitch is a usual "covering" for vessels. The meaning of zepheth, however, is fixed by the obvious Dead Sea imagery of Isa 34:9-15--the streams and land of Edom are to become burning bitumen, like the sites of Sodom and Gomorrah. In Ex 2:3 zepheth is combined with chemar, which also means bitumen (Ge 14:10; see SLIME), and the distinction between the words (different consistencies of the same substance?) is not clear.

Burton Scott Easton

In the topical indexes

Nave's Topical Bible (1896) · 3 references, grouped by sub-topic

→ (Something like tar)
→ An opaque mineral used as a plaster and cement Isa 34:9
→ Used by Noah, in the ark (ship) Ge 6:14
→ In making the basket in which Moses was hidden Ex 2:3
→ See BITUMEN

Texts: Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897); Smith's Bible Dictionary (1884); International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915); Nave's Topical Bible (1896), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.

Pitch

The verses

In the reference works

In the topical indexes

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