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Staff of Moses

Artifact/relic belonging to Moses; mentioned in the Bible and Quran.

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ2893333
Source-derived summary

The Staff of Moses, also known as the Rod of Moses or Staff of God, is mentioned in the Bible and Quran as a walking stick used by Moses. According to the Book of Exodus, the staff (Hebrew: מַטֶּה, romanized: maṭṭe, translated "rod" in the King James Bible) was used to produce water from a rock, was transformed into a snake and back, and was used at the parting of the Red Sea. Whether the staff of Moses was the same as the staff used by his brother Aaron has been debated by rabbinical scholars.

Biblical references to the staff

The staff is first mentioned in the Exodus 4:2, when God appears to Moses in the burning bush. God asks what Moses has in his hand, and Moses answers, "a staff" ("a rod" in the King James Version). The staff is miraculously transformed into a snake and then back into a staff. The staff is thereafter referred to as the "rod of God" or "staff of God" (depending on the translation).

Moses and Aaron appear before the pharaoh, and Aaron's rod is transformed into a serpent. Pharaoh's sorcerers are also able to transform their rods into serpents, but Aaron's rod swallows their rods (Exodus 7:10–12). Aaron's rod is again used to turn the Nile blood-red.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Staff of Moses” is artifact/relic belonging to Moses; mentioned in the Bible and Quran. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Staff, Moses and Artifact, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current 215-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Staff, Moses and Artifact is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “artifact/relic belonging to Moses; mentioned in the Bible and Quran” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2893333. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Staff of Moses”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Staff of Moses primary sources, Staff of Moses archive and Staff research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Staff of Moses”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Staff of Moses” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.