Staff of Moses Staff of Moses The Staff of Moses is a staff mentioned in the Bible and Quran as a walking stick used by Moses. According to the Book of Exodus in the Bible, the staff of ( "matteh", 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 or not Moses' staff was the same as that used by his brother Aaron (known as Aaron's rod) has been debated by rabbinical scholars. The staff is first mentioned in
Moses (Michelangelo) two horns on its head. The depiction of a horned Moses stems from the description of Moses' face as "" ("horned") in the Latin Vulgate translation of the passage found at Exodus chapter 34, specifically verses 29, 30 and 35, in which Moses returns to the people after receiving the commandments for the second time. The Douay-Rheims Bible translates the Vulgate as, "And when Moses came down from the Mount Sinai, he held the two tables of the testimony, and he knew not that his face was horned from the conversation of the Lord." This was Jerome's effort to faithfully