Staff of 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.

While in the "wilderness" after leaving Egypt, Moses follows God's command to strike a rock with the rod to create a spring for the Israelites to drink from (Exodus 17:5–7).

Moses, vexed by the Israelites' complaining, strikes the rock twice with the staff instead of speaking to it as God commanded.

[3] The rod is said to have been created on the sixth day of creation and passed through the hands of the biblical patriarchs before being inherited by Moses.

[4] A Midrash similar to the Arthurian legend of the sword in the stone recounts that the staff was planted in the garden of Moses’ father-in-law Jethro, and it was known that whoever could draw it from the ground would lead Israel out of Egypt.

[4]The Midrash states that the staff was in the possession of the Judean kings until Solomon's Temple was destroyed in 587 BCE, after which its whereabouts became unknown.

There is mention of the rod of Moses in a deposition of Nicolas, abbot of the Þingeyraklaustur in Þingeyrar, who had seen it guarded in a chapel of a palace in Constantinople in c. 1150.

According to this source, the archbishop of Novgorod, Anthony, stated that it was in the church of St Michael in the Boukoleon Palace, among other precious relics.

[6] What was perhaps a different relic is recorded by the 7th-century Chronicon Paschale as kept in the Church of St Mary of Rhabdos, next to the Gate of Saint Aemilianus in the walls of Constantinople.

[7] The Topkapı Palace holds other reputedly holy relics, most notably those attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad (such as his bow, his sword, his footprint, and a tooth).