It’s just a stick, really, probably oak; the kind given to small round-eyed boys when they are first taken along to help with the sheep. The sticks get longer and stronger as the boys grow into men, but they remain what they are, an extension of the shepherd’s arm, almost part of his body. A shepherd without a staff is inconceivable.
So when God says, “What's that in your hand?” (Exod. 4:2) Moses at first looks down, having forgotten that the knotted staff is where it always is. God shows him a magic trick using the staff, and from then on that simple wooden stick becomes a player in the drama of Israel’s redemption.
Moses shows off the stick-to-snake trick to his people to establish his credibility, then Aaron gets a turn doing the same before Pharaoh. Held out over the Nile, the rod later makes the river run with blood; the rod summons the frogs and the lice. The rod is revered. The rod is feared.
Back in Moses’ hands, it is the rod that makes the sea flow back into itself, creating a swath of dry land for the people to walk on. And it is the same rod God asks Moses to strike against the rock to produce water and quench the people’s thirst in a place to be named Massah and Meribah (Exod. 17: 5-7).
This feat Moses repeats in the desert of Zin, near the end of the Israelites’ forty years astray in the desert. (Numbers 20:8-11) Only this time God asks Moses to make the water come forth with words alone, yet Moses, tired and frustrated at the incessant whining and complaining of his people, smacks the rock in anger with his staff. The waters that quench the Israelites’ thirst are again the waters of Meribah, the waters of strife, only now it is the strife between God and Moses.
What has changed? Why is Moses’ action right one time, and wrong another? The consequences of his mistake are dreadful; he may not enter the promised land.
What happens in between is Amalek. Moses sends his second-in-command Joshua into battle, but promises to position himself on a hilltop brandishing the selfsame rod. The gesture is one of encouragement, and is intended to strengthen the fighters’ faith in their own prowess and in God’s help.
Moses trusts that his people are now mature enough to distinguish between a symbol and what it signifies; he leaves the staff behind. But it is not the same: without his magic wand he is just the shepherd he once was. He gets tired of holding up his arms, and the army falters when he does.
Aaron and Hur, who have gone up the hill with Moses, step in. They do not rely on more magic, they do not cry out to God for help. Instead, they demonstrate what it is to have true faith, which is not waiting for more miracles, but doing what is humanly possible to achieve the desired end. In a touching display of kindness and humility, they simply sit their leader down on a rock and, one standing on either side of him, they support his arms. “And his hands were faith”* until the setting of the sun. (Exod. 17:12)
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* אֱמוּנָ֖ה
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