Senses
1. rod, staff, scepter — A straight stick-like implement used either as a walking staff, a shepherd's rod, or a royal scepter symbolizing authority. All 12 NT occurrences reflect the same core lexeme across different grammatical cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative). Multilingual translations uniformly render this as a single concept: Swahili 'fimbo' (rod/stick), Hindi 'laathi' (staff/stick), Korean 'jipangi' (staff/cane), Arabic 'qadib/asa' (rod/staff), Spanish 'vara/cetro' (rod/scepter). The contextual distinction between authority-scepter (Heb 1:8, Rev 2:27) and travel-staff (Matt 10:10, Mark 6:8) is pragmatic rather than lexical, as all languages use the same base word for both. 12×
AR["بِعَصًا","عَصاً","عَصًا","عَصَا","عَصَاهُ","قَضيبُ"]·ben["দণ্ড","দণ্ডে","লাঠি","লাঠিতে","লাঠির"]·DE["Stab"]·EN["a-rod","a-staff","rod","scepter","staff"]·FR["bâton","verge"]·heb["לְ-מַטֶּה","מַטֵּה","מַטֵּהוּ","מַטֶּה","שֵׁבֶט"]·HI["केवल","राजदण्ड","लाठी"]·ID["tongkat","tongkat,"]·IT["rabdon","verga"]·jav["penthung","teken","teken:","tekén"]·KO["매로","지팡의","지팡이","지팡이-에게","지팡이라","지팡이로","지팡이를","홀은","홀이니"]·PT["a-vara","bordão","cetro","vara"]·RU["жезл","жезла","жезле","жезлом","жезлу,","посох","посоха"]·ES["a-vara","bastón","bordón","cetro","vara"]·SW["fimbo","fimbo,","fimbo;"]·TR["asası","asasının","değnek","değnek,","değnekle","değneğe"]·urd["عصا","لاٹھی","لاٹھی-سے","لاٹھی-کے","چھڑی"]
BDB / Lexicon Reference
ῥάβδος, ἡ, rod, wand, Refs 8th c.BC+; lighter than the βακτηρία or walking-stick, NT+5th c.BC+ __1 magic wand, as that of Circe, Refs 8th c.BC+; that with which Athena touched Odysseus, to restore his youthful appearance, χρυσείῃ ῥάβδῳ ἐπεμάσσατο Refs; that with which Hermes overpowers the senses of man, Refs 8th c.BC+; that with which Hades rules the ghosts, Refs 5th c.BC+; divining-rod, Refs…