a stick of wood: a rod, staff, or fresh-cut branch carried or used in the hand
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This is the ordinary wooden stick of everyday life, not a ceremonial object. It is the branch a traveler leans on, the staff a shepherd carries, the switch used to drive an animal, and the twig freshly cut from a tree. What ties every use together is simply the thing itself: a length of wood held in the hand.
Because a plain stick turns up in so many settings, the word ranges widely without ever changing its core. The same object serves as:
a walking or shepherd's staff for the road and the flock
a fresh branch or shoot stripped from a living tree
an emblem of a nation's strength when that "staff" is pictured as broken
a rod consulted for guidance in pagan divination
The closely related מַטֶּה and שֵׁבֶט lean toward the formal rod of office or the rod of rule and striking; this word stays closer to the common stick that anyone might pick up.
Nuances
1aa staff carried in the hand: for walking, herding, or striking, and by extension a stick wielded as a weapon
Gen 32:10(11)Exo 12:11Num 22:271Sa 17:401Sa 17:43Ezk 39:9Zec 11:7*Zec 11:10Zec 11:14
1ba fresh branch or shoot cut from a living tree
Gen 30:37 (2×)Gen 30:38Gen 30:39Gen 30:41 (2×)Jer 1:11
1ca rod pictured as the emblem of a nation's strength or dominion
TranslatabilityDirect
Jer 48:17*
1da rod consulted for pagan guidance: a divining stick
Names an ordinary walking or shepherd's staff carried in the hand for everyday travel, herding, or striking, with no sense of office or tribe.Exo 12:111Sa 17:40Num 22:27
Names a fresh branch or twig cut from a tree and handled for a purpose, such as the peeled rods Jacob set before the flocks or the almond shoot Jeremiah sees.Gen 30:37Jer 1:11
Both
Both name a rod or staff, and they stand side by side as parallel poetic synonyms for the one broken staff of a fallen nation.Jer 48:17
Names a whole tribe of Israel, the organized descent group counted and mustered as a unit. This administrative meaning belongs only to this word and never to the plain stick word.Num 1:4Num 1:16Num 2:5
Stands for the staff as an emblem of authority and of God's power, above all the wonder-working rod of Moses and Aaron that turns to a serpent and unleashes the plagues.Exo 4:2Exo 7:9Exo 17:9
שֵׁבֶטthe rod for striking or the scepter of rule (and also "tribe"), stressing correction and dominion; this word stays closer to the plain carried stick.
It can be a fresh-cut, partly peeled green branch used in animal breeding, a stick worked with by hand rather than a finished staff. The Greek word never denotes this raw twig.Gen 30:37Gen 30:38Gen 30:39Gen 30:41
It names a rod consulted for divination, a stick from which a person expects an oracle. The Greek word carries no such use.Hos 4:12
It can be a staff taken up and enacted as a prophetic sign, named for what it stands for and then broken to dramatize a message. The Greek word is never a sign-staff of this kind.Zec 11:7Zec 11:10Zec 11:14
Both
Both name the plain wooden staff a person carries in hand for a journey and leans on for support; the Greek word is the natural rendering when such a staff is described, as when it stands for the very staff Jacob carried.Gen 32:10Exo 12:11Mat 10:10Heb 11:21
Both can be the rod raised to strike or to threaten a beating, the staff as an instrument of blows or correction.Num 22:271Sa 17:431Co 4:21
In the New Testament it rises to the iron scepter of sovereign, world-ruling authority, the rod as the emblem of a king who breaks and governs the nations. The Hebrew word never reaches this royal register.Heb 1:8Rev 2:27Rev 12:5Rev 19:15
It can name a rod treasured as a holy object, the budded staff of Aaron stored inside the ark of the covenant beside the jar of manna and the tablets. The Hebrew word is never a relic kept and venerated this way.Heb 9:4
What scholars say about maqqel
The standard lexica (BDB, HALOT, DCH) treat מַקֵּל as a single concrete noun meaning "rod, staff, stick," grouping its occurrences by use rather than by distinct sense: a shepherd's or traveler's staff (Gen 32:11 [Eng 32:10]; Exod 12:11;1 Sam 17:40), Jacob's peeled rods (Gen 30:37-41), the almond rod of Jeremiah's vision (Jer 1:11), the figurative "staff" of Moab's power (Jer 48:17), and the divining rod of Hos 4:12 (rhabdomancy). It is distinguished from מַטֶּה and שֵׁבֶט, which more readily denote the rod of office, scepter, or instrument of rule, and from מִשְׁעֶנֶת, the staff of support. The Septuagint most often renders it with ῥάβδος.