Keluaran 4:2-3

4:2 The Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” He said, “A staff.” ¹  4:3 The Lord ²  said, “Throw it to the ground.” So he threw it to the ground, and it became a snake, ³  and Moses ran from it.

[4:2]  ¹ tn Or “rod” (KJV, ASV); NCV, CEV “walking stick”; NLT “shepherd’s staff.”

[4:2]  sn The staff appears here to be the shepherd’s staff that he was holding. It now will become the instrument with which Moses will do the mighty works, for it is the medium of the display of the divine power (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 27; also, L. Shalit, “How Moses Turned a Staff into a Snake and Back Again,” BAR 9 [1983]: 72-73).

[4:3]  ² tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[4:3]  ³ sn The details of the verse are designed to show that there was a staff that became a snake. The question is used to affirm that there truly was a staff, and then the report of Moses running from it shows it was a genuine snake. Using the serpent as a sign would have had an impact on the religious ideas of Egypt, for the sacred cobra was one of their symbols.