Seder 117: Numbers 20:8---"Take the Staff"--Which One? Why?

 When we turn the page to Numbers 20, the years of Israel's sojourn in the wilderness have flown by.  The rest of the book of Numbers takes place in year 40 of the nation's time in the wilderness.  Most of Israel's older generation has died, and a new generation looks forward to completing the journey to the Promised Land.  When that new generation complains to Moses and Aaron (20:2-5), they are looking forward to "grain or figs or vines or pomegranates" (verse 5), not backward to garlic, leeks, fish, and melons (11:5).  

God instructs Moses and Aaron to honor Israel's request for water:  "Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water.  So you shall bring the water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle" (verse 8).  

It's natural to compare this incident with one almost 39 years before, when the parents of these Israelites had recently crossed the Red Sea and were on their way to Sinai.  In that case God directed Moses to strike a rock with his staff, at which point water would come from the rock (Ex 17:6).  This time Moses was to speak to a rock, not strike it.

So what role was the staff to play in this case?  In answering this question, we should first note that the staff in Numbers 20:8 is probably different from the one in Exodus 17:6.  The staff in Numbers 20:8, which Moses takes "from before the Lord" (verse 9), is Aaron's staff that had budded and was subsequently placed next to the ark of the covenant as a sign for the people (Nu 17:10).

After Moses grabbed this staff, he may have handed it to Aaron.  This staff pointed to God as the source of life.  In this case, it would help communicate to the people that God was their faithful provider and would give them the water they needed.  He had not abandoned them in the wilderness; instead, he was working through Moses and Aaron to bring them into the land.  

Commentator Michael Morales proposes that the staff with which Moses struck the rock in Numbers 20:10 was his own staff, the one he had also used to strike the rock in Exodus 17.  In losing his temper and striking the rock in this case, Moses misrepresented God, who was not angry with this new generation of Israelites.  God wanted the new generation to know that he was their source of life, as symbolized by Aaron's staff.  Instead, Moses was sending a message with his own staff that the nation deserved to be judged.