Usually translated as “ark” or “ship,” תֵּבָה tebah (H8392) is literally defined as a “vessel” used as floating container for holding items. The word is only used to describe two events in the Torah; Used for the basket that carried Moses down the Nile river (cf. Exodus 2:3-5) and the ark of Noah (cf. Genesis 6:14-16). The length of a cubit has varied over time but the measurements correspond roughly to a vessel 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high and would make the ark of Noah larger than any wooden vessel ever built. (In comparison, The Great Pyramid of Giza has an estimated original height, without loss due to erosion, of 430 feet. The Pyramid was the tallest structure in the world for almost 4,000 years.)
In 1733, Thomas Stackhouse and his illustrators depict the ark as having a rectangular box-like design, very different to the traditional sea-going ship with curved keel, bow and rounded hull. According to Stackhouse, Noah was commanded to “build a kind of vessel, not in the form of ships now in use, but rather inclining to the fashion of a large chest or ark.” As this ark was, “intended only for a kind of float, to swim above the water, the flatness of it’s bottom did render it more capacious.” It was, Stackhouse argues, designed for protection and not for navigation.
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