4936. On several occasions spirits have appeared holding rods, who, I was told, were magicians. They are in front, a long way off on the right, deeply within caverns. Magicians who have been more malevolent ones are hidden more deeply than the rest within them. They seem to themselves to have rods, and by means of delusions they also produce many more kinds of rods, believing that they can use these to perform miracles. For they imagine that these rods have power within them, and they imagine this because the right hand and the arm, which by correspondence are embodiments of strength and power, support themselves on those rods. This has made it evident to me why people of old assigned rods to magicians, for the gentiles of old received this idea from the representative Ancient Church, in which rods, like the hand, meant power, see 4876. And because these meant power Moses was commanded, when miracles were performed, to stretch out his rod or his hand, Exodus 4:17, 20; 8:5-20; 9:23; 10:3-21; 14:21, 26-27; 17:5-6, 11-12; Numbers 20:7-10.

8579. 'And your rod with which you struck the river' means the Divine power by means of which falsities were dispelled. This is clear from the meaning of 'rod' as power, dealt with in 4013, 4015, 4876, 4936, 6947, 7011, 7026, at this point Divine power because 'Moses', whose rod it was, represents the Lord in respect of Divine Truth; and from the meaning of 'the river', in this instance the river of Egypt, as falsity, dealt with in 6693. The words 'with which you struck the river' are used in order to mean the dispelling of falsity; for the Divine power by which truth is supplied is also the means by which falsities are dispelled. The truth which is supplied is meant by 'the water from the rock in Horeb'.