Exodus 4:17

Green's Literal Translation

And you shall take this staff in your hand by which you do the signs.

Parallel Translations

Hebrew Names Version
You shall take this rod in your hand, with which you shall do the signs."

King James Version
And thou shalt take this rod in thine hand, wherewith thou shalt do signs.

Lexham English Bible
And you must take this staff in your hand, with which you will do the signs."

New Century Version
Take your walking stick with you, and use it to do the miracles."

New English Translation
You will also take in your hand this staff, with which you will do the signs."

Amplified Bible
"You shall take in your hand this staff, with which you shall perform the signs [the miracles which prove I sent you]."

New American Standard Bible
"And you shall take in your hand this staff, with which you shall perform the signs."

Geneva Bible (1587)
Moreouer thou shalt take this rod in thine hand, wherewith thou shalt do miracles.

Legacy Standard Bible
And you shall take in your hand this staff, with which you shall do the signs."

Contemporary English Version
Now take this walking stick and use it to perform miracles.

Complete Jewish Bible
Now take this staff in your hand, because you need it to perform the signs."

Darby Translation
And thou shalt take this staff in thy hand, with which thou shalt do the signs.

Easy-to-Read Version
So go and carry your walking stick with you. Use it and the other miracles to show the people that I am with you."

English Standard Version
And take in your hand this staff, with which you shall do the signs."

George Lamsa Translation
And you shall take this staff in your hand, with which you shall do signs.

Good News Translation
Take this walking stick with you; for with it you will perform miracles."

Christian Standard Bible®
And take this staff in your hand that you will perform the signs with.”

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
And take in thine hande this staff, wherwith thou shalt do tokens.

American Standard Version
And thou shalt take in thy hand this rod, wherewith thou shalt do the signs.

Bible in Basic English
And take in your hand this rod with which you will do the signs.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
And thou shalt take this rodde in thy hande, wherewith thou shalt do miracles.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
And thou shalt take in thy hand this rod, wherewith thou shalt do the signs.'

King James Version (1611)
And thou shalt take this rod in thine hand, wherewith thou shalt doe signes.

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
And this rod that was turned into a serpent thou shalt take in thine hand, wherewith thou shalt work miracles.

English Revised Version
And thou shalt take in thine hand this rod, wherewith thou shalt do the signs.

Berean Standard Bible
But take this staff in your hand so that you can perform signs with it."

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Also take thou this yerde in thin hond, in which thou schalt do myraclis.

Young's Literal Translation
and this rod thou dost take in thy hand, with which thou doest the signs.'

Update Bible Version
And you shall take in your hand this rod, with which you shall do the signs.

Webster's Bible Translation
And thou shalt take this rod in thy hand, with which thou shalt perform signs.

World English Bible
You shall take this rod in your hand, with which you shall do the signs."

New King James Version
And you shall take this rod in your hand, with which you shall do the signs."

New Living Translation
And take your shepherd's staff with you, and use it to perform the miraculous signs I have shown you."

New Life Bible
You will take this special stick in your hand. And you will use it to make the special things happen for the people to see."

New Revised Standard
Take in your hand this staff, with which you shall perform the signs."

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
And this staff, take thou in thy hand, - wherewith thou shalt do the signs.

Douay-Rheims Bible
And take this rod in thy hand. wherewith thou shalt do the signs.

Revised Standard Version
And you shall take in your hand this rod, with which you shall do the signs."

New American Standard Bible (1995)
"You shall take in your hand this staff, with which you shall perform the signs."

Contextual Overview

¹⁰ And Moses said to Jehovah, O Lord, I am not a man of words, either from yesterday or the third day, nor since You have been speaking to Your bondslave. For I am heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue. ¹¹ And Jehovah said to him, Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes the dumb, or the deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Is it not I, Jehovah? ¹² And now go, and I will be with your mouth, and will teach you what you shall speak. ¹³ And he said, O Lord, please send by the hand of him whom You will send. ¹⁴ And the anger of Jehovah glowed against Moses. And He said, Do I not know your brother, Aaron the Levite, that he can speak well? And, behold, he also is coming out to meet you, and he will see you and be glad in his heart. ¹⁵ And you shall speak to him, and you shall put the words in his mouth. And I will be with your mouth, and with his mouth, and I will teach you what you shall do. ¹⁶ And he shall speak for you to the people. And it shall be, he shall be a mouth for you, and you shall be a god for him. ¹⁷ And you shall take this staff in your hand by which you do the signs.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Exodus 4:2, Exodus 7:9, Exodus 7:19, 1 Corinthians 1:27

Reciprocal: Exodus 4:3 - it became Exodus 4:14 - cometh Exodus 4:20 - the rod of God Exodus 14:16 - lift Leviticus 8:11 - General Numbers 17:2 - twelve rods Numbers 20:8 - the rod 2 Kings 4:29 - take my 2 Kings 13:17 - The arrow

Cross-References

Genesis 4:4
And Abel brought, he also, from the firstlings of his flocks, even from their fat. And Jehovah looked to Abel and to his offering.

Genesis 4:11
And now you are cursed more than the ground which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.

Genesis 5:18
And Jared lived one hundred and sixty two years and fathered Enoch.

Genesis 5:22
And Enoch walked with God three hundred years after he fathered Methuselah. And he fathered sons and daughters.

Genesis 11:4
And they said, Come, let us build a city and a tower with its head in the heavens, and make a name for ourselves, that we not be scattered on the face of all the earth.

2 Samuel 18:18
And during his lifetime Absalom had taken and set up for himself a standing-pillar, which is in the King's Valley. For he said, I have no son to cause my name to be remembered. And he called the standing pillar by his name and it is calledAbsalom's Monument to this day.

Psalms 49:11
Their inward thought is that their houses shall last forever, their dwelling-places to all generations; they call lands after their own names.

Daniel 4:30
The king spoke and said, Is this not great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty?

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And thou shall take this rod in thine hand,.... Which he then had in his hand, and was no other than his shepherd's staff:

wherewith thou shall do signs: wondrous things, meaning the ten plagues inflicted on Egypt.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Exodus 4:17. Thou shalt take this rod — From the story of Moses's rod the heathens have invented the fables of the thyrsus of Bacchus, and the caduceus of Mercury. Cicero reckons five Bacchuses, one of which, according to Orpheus, was born of the river Nile; but, according to the common opinion, he was born on the banks of that river. Bacchus is expressly said to have been exposed on the river Nile, hence he is called Nilus, both by Diodorus and Macrobius; and in the hymns of Orpheus he is named Myses, because he was drawn out of the water. He is represented by the poets as being very beautiful, and an illustrious warrior; they report him to have overrun all Arabia with a numerous army both of men and women. He is said also to have been an eminent law-giver, and to have written his laws on two tables. He always carried in his hand the thyrsus, a rod wreathed with serpents, and by which he is reported to have wrought many miracles. Any person acquainted with the birth and exploits of the poetic Bacchus will at once perceive them to be all borrowed from the life and acts of Moses, as recorded in the Pentateuch; and it would be losing time to show the parallel, by quoting passages from the book of Exodus.

The caduceus or rod of Mercury is well known in poetic fables. It is another copy Of the rod of Moses. He also is reported to have wrought a multitude of miracles by this rod; and particularly he is said to kill and make alive, to send souls to the invisible world and bring them back from thence. Homer represents Mercury taking his rod to work miracles precisely in the same way as God commands Moses to take his.

Ἑρμης δε ψυχας Κυλληνιος εξεκαλειτο

Ανδρων μνηστηρων· εχε δε ῬΑΒΔΟΝ μετα χερσιν

Καλην, χρυσειην, τῃ τ' ανδρων ομματα θελγει,

Ὡν εθελει, τους δ' αυτε και ὑπνωοντας εγειρει.

Odyss., lib. xxiv., ver. 1.

Cyllenian Hermes now call'd forth the souls

Of all the suitors; with his golden WAND

Of power, to seal in balmy sleep whose eyes

Soe'er he will, and open them again. COWPER.

Virgil copies Homer, but carries the parallel farther, tradition having probably furnished him with more particulars; but in both we may see a disguised copy of the sacred history, from which indeed the Greek and Roman poets borrowed most of their beauties.

TUM VIRGAM CAPIT: hac animas ille evocat Orco

Pallentes, alias sub tristia Tartara mittit;

Dat somnos, adimitque, et lumina morte resignat

ILLA fretus agit, ventos, et turbida tranat.

AEneid, lib. iv., ver. 242.

But first he grasps within his awful hand

The mark of sovereign power, the magic wand;

With this he draws the ghosts from hollow graves,

With this he drives them down the Stygian waves;

With this he seals in sleep the wakeful sight,

And eyes, though closed in death, restores to light.

Thus arm'd, the god begins his airy race,

And drives the racking clouds along the liquid space.

DRYDEN.

Many other resemblances between the rod of the poets and that of Moses, the learned reader will readily recollect. These specimens may be deemed sufficient.