0
0
By William Van Zyl
Published September 22, 2026
The crowd had been waiting for three hundred years.
Three hundred years of searching.
Three hundred years of bringing strong men, warriors, scholars, princes and travellers from distant lands to the ancient stone.
None had succeeded.
There it stood.
An enormous slab of dark, weather-beaten rock lay half buried in the earth. Its surface was scarred by centuries of wind and rain, yet something extraordinary remained at its centre.
A sword.
Only the hilt and part of the blade were visible.
But this was no ordinary sword.
The blade appeared to be made of something resembling deep blue sapphire. It shimmered beneath the sunlight, sometimes appearing almost transparent, sometimes dark as the midnight sky. Strange markings ran along its surface.
The elders had guarded the stone for generations.
The story had become almost a legend.
Only the right person could remove the sword.
For three hundred years, they had searched for that person.
Then, one morning, a young man named Jonathan arrived.
He was not dressed like a warrior.
He carried no impressive weapon.
He wore no crown.
He simply walked towards the rock.
The crowd became silent.
Someone whispered:
“Could he be the one?”
Jonathan placed his hand upon the sapphire hilt.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then—
the sword began to glow.
A deep blue light travelled along the blade.
The markings upon the sword seemed to awaken.
The people gasped.
Jonathan tightened his grip.
He pulled.
The sword moved.
Slowly at first.
Then suddenly—
SLIP!
The sapphire sword came free from the rock.
Jonathan staggered backwards, holding the glowing weapon in his hands.
Nobody spoke.
The silence was broken only by the faint humming sound coming from the extraordinary blade.
The elders looked at one another.
They had been searching for three hundred years.
And now they knew.
The sword had chosen its keeper.
But what if the story of a mysterious object waiting for the right person is not merely a fantasy?
What if an ancient Jewish tradition preserves the memory of another extraordinary object—one associated with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and finally Moses?
What if that object was described as sapphire?
This is where our journey takes us into the fascinating world of the Book of Jasher.
The Book of Jasher and the Sapphire Staff
We must establish something important before going further.
The Bible itself refers to a Book of Jasher.
Joshua 10:13 mentions the Book of Jasher, and 2 Samuel 1:18 also refers to it. However, the ancient book mentioned in those biblical passages has not been securely identified with the later work commonly circulated today as The Book of Jasher. The surviving Jasher text we possess is an extra-biblical work, and its history and antiquity are debated.
So we should not treat the Book of Jasher as Scripture.
The Bible is the Bible.
Jasher is Jasher.
But that doesn’t mean Jasher is uninteresting.
Quite the opposite.
It contains stories and traditions that can make us stop, think and return to the biblical text with fresh eyes.
And one of its most extraordinary stories concerns a sapphire staff.
Chapter 77: Moses and the Sapphire Stick
According to Jasher 77, Moses had been imprisoned in Midian.
After his release, Moses entered Reuel’s garden.
There, while Moses was praying, he saw something astonishing.
A sapphire stick was planted in the ground.
The text says that the name of the Lord God of hosts was engraved upon it.
Moses reached out his hand.
And he pulled it from the ground.
The event becomes even more remarkable.
Jasher says that this was the same stick associated with God’s works from the beginning.
It connects the object with Adam.
According to the account, after Adam was driven from Eden, he took the staff and used it while tilling the ground.
The staff then passed through generations:
Adam → Noah → Shem → Abraham → Isaac → Jacob → Joseph → Reuel → Moses.
That is an astonishing chain of tradition.
Think about that for a moment.
A physical object supposedly travelled through humanity’s history.
From the Garden of Eden…
to the generations before the Flood…
to Noah…
to Abraham…
to Isaac…
to Jacob…
to Joseph…
and eventually into Moses’ hands.
And the object was described as sapphire.
Adam and the Sapphire Staff
Here is where the story becomes particularly intriguing.
The Bible says Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
After the Fall, Genesis says Adam would work the ground from which he had been taken.
Jasher expands this picture.
It says Adam took the mysterious staff and tilled the ground.
The biblical account gives us the theological story.
Jasher adds a traditional detail.
That difference is important.
We should not say:
“The Bible says Adam used a sapphire staff.”
It does not.
Rather, we can say:
“Jasher contains a tradition that Adam used a sapphire staff.”
That distinction protects Scripture’s authority while allowing us to explore the fascinating world of ancient extra-biblical tradition.
From Adam to Moses
Imagine the symbolism.
The first man receives an object associated with God’s creative work.
Adam uses it while working the ground.
Generations pass.
The object moves through the patriarchal family.
Then it reaches Moses.
And Moses stands before Pharaoh.
Now the mysterious staff becomes associated with signs and wonders.
This is where the Book of Jasher and the Bible begin to stand side by side in a fascinating way.
The Bible already tells us about Moses’ staff.
It was not merely an ordinary walking stick.
God asked Moses:
“What is that in your hand?”
Moses answered:
“A staff.”
God commanded him to throw it onto the ground.
It became a serpent.
Moses picked it up again, and it became a staff.
Later, before Pharaoh, Aaron’s staff became a serpent, while the Egyptian magicians performed a similar sign. But Aaron’s serpent swallowed their serpents.
And suddenly we have another fascinating question.
Could this have been the same staff Jasher described as the sapphire staff?
The Bible does not tell us that.
We must not turn speculation into doctrine.
But the possibility is fascinating.
The Staff Before Pharaoh
Picture the Egyptian court.
Pharaoh sits in power.
The magicians stand nearby.
Moses and Aaron stand before him.
Moses throws a staff onto the ground.
It becomes a serpent.
The Egyptian magicians do something similar.
But then comes the dramatic difference.
The serpent associated with Aaron’s staff swallows their serpents.
The sign demonstrates superiority.
The Bible attributes the miracle to God’s power, not to any magical property inherent in the staff’s material.
That is an important distinction.
The staff itself is not presented as a god.
It is an instrument in God’s hand.
And this becomes even more interesting when we return to Jasher.
Jasher describes the staff as carrying the name of God.
Could this explain why later traditions regarded it as an extraordinary object?
Or is the sapphire detail simply part of a later legendary tradition?
The reader must wrestle with the question.
Did the Sapphire Staff Part the Red Sea?
Now we reach one of the most dramatic scenes in the entire Exodus story.
Israel stands before the Red Sea.
Behind them is Pharaoh.
In front of them is an impossible barrier of water.
The people are terrified.
Moses raises his staff.
The biblical account says that God commands Moses to stretch out his hand over the sea.
The waters divide.
Israel walks through.
The Egyptian army follows.
The waters return.
The Exodus begins with divine deliverance.
Jasher also tells the story of the Red Sea and explicitly describes Moses lifting his rod over the sea and dividing it.
Now place the two accounts side by side.
Jasher 77:
Moses receives a sapphire staff connected with the ancient patriarchs.
Jasher 81:
Moses raises his rod, and the Red Sea divides.
Exodus:
Moses stretches out his hand with the staff, and God delivers Israel through the sea.
Could the sapphire staff of Jasher be the same staff associated with Moses in Exodus?
It is certainly a fascinating possibility.
But again:
Possibility is not proof.
What About the Ten Plagues?
The staff appears repeatedly in the biblical Exodus narrative.
The Nile becomes blood.
The staff is associated with signs before Pharaoh.
The miraculous contest between Moses and the Egyptian magicians unfolds.
And again, we should notice something important.
The Bible never says:
“The sapphire staff performed these miracles because sapphire possesses supernatural power.”
Instead, the miracles demonstrate God’s power and authority.
The staff is an instrument.
That distinction matters enormously.
The Bible’s emphasis is not:
“Look at the magical object.”
It is:
“Look at the God who acts through Moses.”
And Then Came the Serpents
There is another remarkable connection.
During Israel’s wilderness journey, the people complained against God and Moses.
Then poisonous serpents came among them.
Many Israelites were bitten and died.
The people confessed their sin and asked Moses to intercede.
God instructed Moses to make a serpent and place it upon a pole.
Anyone who had been bitten could look upon it and live.
Moses made the serpent from bronze.
Now stop and consider the imagery.
Earlier:
The staff becomes a serpent.
Later:
A serpent is placed upon a pole.
Earlier:
The Egyptian serpents are swallowed by Aaron’s serpent.
Later:
The Israelites look upon the bronze serpent and live.
A fascinating thread of serpent imagery runs through the wilderness narrative.
But another important theological point emerges.
The bronze serpent itself was not God.
It was an object used according to God’s command.
Centuries later, the bronze serpent became an object of improper worship and King Hezekiah destroyed it (2 Kings 18:4).
Once again, Scripture warns us not to confuse the instrument with the God who gives the power.
Could the Staff Have Been Sapphire?
Now we come to the big question.
Could Moses’ staff actually have been made from sapphire?
The Bible does not tell us what material Moses’ staff was made from.
That is the honest answer.
Exodus calls it a staff or rod.
It does not identify it as sapphire.
The sapphire identification comes from the Jasher tradition.
And this is precisely why the subject is so fascinating.
The Bible leaves the material unspecified.
Jasher supplies a striking tradition.
So we can ask:
Was the later tradition remembering something that the biblical text simply did not explain?
Or did the tradition develop as an imaginative expansion of the biblical story?
We cannot know with certainty.
But we can investigate.
We can compare.
We can ask questions.
And perhaps that is one of the great values of studying extra-biblical literature.
It makes us return to Scripture.
Why Sapphire?
There is another reason the word sapphire catches our attention.
Sapphire imagery appears in biblical descriptions of heavenly glory.
In Exodus 24, Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the elders of Israel see something beneath the feet of the God of Israel described as a pavement like sapphire, clear as the sky.
Sapphire therefore already has a significant biblical association with divine glory.
The later Jasher tradition’s sapphire staff therefore creates a fascinating symbolic connection.
Sapphire appears in biblical heavenly imagery.
Sapphire appears in the Jasher story of the staff.
But we should resist the temptation to force these texts together.
The connection is intriguing.
It is not proof.
A Staff That Crossed Generations
Perhaps the most beautiful aspect of the Jasher tradition is the staff’s journey.
Imagine it.
Adam holds it.
He leaves Eden.
Noah receives it.
The Flood comes and goes.
Humanity begins again.
Abraham holds it.
Isaac receives it.
Jacob carries it.
Joseph receives it in Egypt.
Eventually it comes into the possession of Reuel.
Then Moses enters the garden.
Moses sees the sapphire object.
He reaches out his hand.
And he pulls it from the earth.
The scene almost echoes our opening story of Jonathan and the sword.
Three hundred years of searching.
Many people attempt to remove the object.
Then the right person arrives.
He touches it.
And it comes free.
The idea is deeply symbolic.
The object cannot be taken by strength alone.
It belongs to the one who has the right to receive it.
But Is Jasher Really “Apocrypha”?
Here we need to make another distinction.
The word Apocrypha commonly refers to collections of Jewish writings associated with the biblical period that fall outside the Hebrew Bible; different Christian traditions use the term somewhat differently.
The Book of Jasher is different.
The surviving work called Jasher is generally treated as extra-biblical or pseudepigraphal, rather than as a standard book of the biblical Apocrypha.
This distinction matters.
So throughout this discussion, we should not say that the Bible and Jasher have equal authority.
They do not.
Instead, we can approach Jasher as an ancient or traditional literary witness that preserves stories and interpretations surrounding biblical figures.
It can raise questions.
It can provide interesting parallels.
It can illuminate how later readers imagined the biblical past.
But Scripture remains Scripture.
What Does Jasher Add?
Perhaps the greatest value of such literature is not that it replaces the Bible.
It makes us ask questions.
Why does the Bible mention Moses’ staff so many times?
Why was it the instrument of extraordinary signs?
Why did God ask Moses:
“What is that in your hand?”
Why did the staff become a serpent?
Why was it raised over the Red Sea?
Why did God tell Moses to strike the rock?
Why did Aaron’s rod later become a sign of priestly authority?
And why does an extra-biblical tradition describe a staff stretching all the way back to Adam?
These are fascinating questions.
And they invite us back into the biblical text.
The Sapphire Sword and the Sapphire Staff
Perhaps that is why I began with Jonathan and the sword.
A sword pulled from a rock is the stuff of legend.
But the image carries a powerful idea:
an extraordinary object waiting for the right person.
Jasher gives us another version of this ancient motif.
The sapphire staff is planted in the ground.
Strong men attempt to pull it out.
They fail.
Then Moses comes.
He reaches out his hand.
And he removes it.
The difference is striking.
Jonathan’s sword is a fictional image.
Moses’ sapphire staff belongs to the tradition preserved in Jasher.
The Bible itself gives us Moses and his miraculous staff, but does not identify the material as sapphire.
And that leaves us with an intriguing possibility rather than a certainty.
So, Was Moses’ Staff Sapphire?
Perhaps.
Perhaps not.
The Bible does not tell us.
Jasher does.
And that is exactly where the mystery begins.
Could the staff mentioned in Exodus have been the sapphire staff Jasher describes?
Could the same staff have travelled through generations from Adam to Moses?
Could the mysterious object Jasher describes explain why Moses’ staff appears repeatedly at moments of divine intervention?
Or is Jasher preserving a later tradition designed to fill in details that Scripture leaves unexplained?
We cannot answer these questions with certainty.
But we can explore them.
And perhaps that is the real treasure.
The Bible and Jasher: Two Different Voices
Let us finish where we began—with a distinction.
The Bible is not Jasher.
The Bible is Scripture.
Jasher is an extra-biblical work containing expanded traditions and narratives.
We should not use Jasher to rewrite the Bible.
We should not claim that something is biblical simply because Jasher says it.
But neither should we be afraid to examine these fascinating traditions.
Jasher gives us an extraordinary image:
a sapphire staff planted in the earth, bearing the name of God, connected with Adam and passed through generations until it reached Moses.
The Bible gives us Moses holding the staff of God.
The Bible says the staff became a serpent.
The Bible records the confrontation with Pharaoh’s magicians.
The Bible records the staff’s association with the signs of the Exodus.
The Bible records Moses stretching out the staff over the Red Sea.
The Bible also records the bronze serpent raised in the wilderness.
Put these passages beside the Jasher tradition—not as equals, but as comparable texts—and a remarkable picture emerges.
Perhaps the sapphire staff was historical.
Perhaps it was a later tradition.
Perhaps a forgotten history lies behind the story.
We simply do not know.
But one thing is certain:
The possibility is fascinating.
And perhaps the next time you read about Moses standing before Pharaoh with a staff in his hand, you will pause.
You may find yourself asking:
What exactly was in Moses’ hand?
Was it merely a shepherd’s staff?
Was it a symbol of authority?
Was it the instrument through which God demonstrated His power?
Or, as the tradition of Jasher suggests, could it have been something far more extraordinary—
a sapphire staff that had travelled through the history of humanity, from Adam to Moses?
The Bible gives us the mystery.
Jasher gives us another layer of tradition.
And between them lies a fascinating question:
What other treasures have we yet to discover?
Dear reader: “Pull that Sword from the Rock!”
The Word is close to you, in your mouth.
“The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”. Romans 10:8.
Use the Word of God.
God’s Word in your mouth, mixed with faith, can achieve anything.
………..0………….
Copyright © 2026 by William Van Zyl
“Pull that Sapphire Sword from the Rock!”
All rights reserved. This eBook/article or any portion
thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner
without the publisher’s permission, except for using brief quotations in a book review.
Published by Five House Publishing (New Zealand)
First published, September 2026
More eBooks and articles are available at https://fivehousepublishing.com/
More about the author at http://williamvanzyl.com/
