This noun names the ark in Noah's account and the basket that holds the infant Moses. Genesis gives Noah particular building instructions and narrates the ark carrying people and creatures through the flood.
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Full entry for תֵּבָה (H8392) · Open the biblical lexicon
This noun names the ark in Noah's account and the basket that holds the infant Moses. Genesis gives Noah particular building instructions and narrates the ark carrying people and creatures through the flood.
The BSB source-word alignment has 28 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include the ark (18), in the ark (3), of the ark (2), an ark (1), basket (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 6:14. Its strongest book concentrations include Genesis (26), Exodus (2).
This noun names the ark in Noah's account and the basket that holds the infant Moses. Genesis gives Noah particular building instructions and narrates the ark carrying people and creatures through the flood. Exodus describes a papyrus basket coated with tar and pitch and placed among the reeds along the Nile. Both narratives concern a container within an account of preservation, but their dimensions, occupants and circumstances differ.
The shared Hebrew noun does not make Moses's basket a ship or make Noah's ark the covenant ark. Read what the container holds, how it is prepared and what the narrative says happens. Its material construction is part of the scene, not a promise that any similar object will provide spiritual protection.
Noah's prepared ark, its resting after the flood and Moses's papyrus basket retain distinct objects and circumstances while contributing to their respective preservation narratives.
Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; make rooms in the ark and coat it with pitch inside and out.
Noah receives particular instructions about the ark's material, compartments and covering; the following verses supply dimensions rather than a general protective-object ritual.
On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.
The ark rests on the mountains of Ararat as the flood account narrates receding waters; the verse does not identify a present archaeological find or route.
But when she could no longer hide him, she got him a papyrus basket and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in the basket and set it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.
Moses's mother prepares a papyrus basket with tar and pitch and places it among Nile reeds after she can no longer hide him.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. a box
a box BDB: ark Usage: ark.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 2 selected witnesses from 28 lexical occurrence verses.
תֵּבָה is of foreign origin - no further derivation.
Moses's basket can be overlooked when an English word study begins and ends with Noah's ark. The Hebrew witness brings both containers into view, but Exodus gives its own details: a mother can no longer hide her child, prepares a papyrus basket and places it among the reeds. Pharaoh's daughter then finds it and responds to the crying infant with compassion. Genesis instead describes a much larger prepared ark within the flood and covenant narrative.
These connections enrich reading without making the objects identical. The covenant ark named elsewhere also requires its own Hebrew wording and setting. Attend to the particular object and action before drawing a broader analogy. Preservation is narrated through these events; it is not a property that the noun grants to every container.
Exod.2.3
The licensed Hebrew comparison gives box and ark language. The selected BSB witnesses translate the noun as ark and basket, while Exodus 25:10's covenant ark uses a different Hebrew entry; English resemblance does not erase that distinction.
First Peter 3:20 explicitly recalls Noah and the ark. Its surrounding discussion concerns Christ's suffering, resurrection and a baptism comparison; those claims belong to Peter's whole passage, not to a container noun. The recollection does not identify Moses's basket or the covenant ark as the same object.