The Staff of Moses

The Staff of Moses is a staff, mentioned in both the Bible and Quran. It is traditionally seen as a walking stick used by Moses. According to the Book of Exodus in the Bible, the staff 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.
Well, that surely must have been a powerful piece of wood. A simple walking stick that could perform magical tricks. That can't possibly be true.

In the original Hebrew, the implement was called matteh (מַטֶּה‎), which can be translated a 'rod'. If this rod, as is said in the bible, could change itself into a snake, maybe what the ancients meant to say was that it was a rod that looked like a snake. It must have been viewed as very powerful too.

So, are there any snakelike rods in nature that can possibly harbour immense power?
Yes, there are and they are called fulgurites (from the Latin fulgur, meaning 'lightning'). They are natural tubes, clumps or masses of sintered, vitrified, and/or fused soil, sand, rock, organic debris or other sediments that can form when lightning discharges into the ground.

Fulgurites can therefore be seen as petrified lightning. Can you think of a more powerful image for a man like Moses?
Even Zeus (Ζεύς), the ancient Greek god of the sky and thunder and ruler of the gods on Mount Olympus, is always depicted with a rod of lightning in his hand. And it shouldn't really come as a surprise that a fulgurite was found within the contents of an altar at the temple of Zeus at Mount Lykaion in Greece.

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