With signs – This refers to the staff. It is difficult to understand the connection between ‘signs’ and ‘the staff of Moses.’ The staff is not a sign but merely the utensil that was used to create the signs. So why is it referred to in this way? This verse refers to the ten plagues. Why mention the staff at all since it was not used to perform all of the plagues but only some of them? Finally, the earlier part of this verse in Deuteronomy 26 already mentioned the ten plagues so what does a reference to the staff or the signs add to our understanding of this verse?

To understand the reference to the staff, we must understand something about the nature of prophecy and sympathetic acts. Prophets from the time of Abraham on performed sympathetic rites that, in some way, were meant to be prophetic or predictive of the future. Nachmanides suggests that Abraham’s travels throughout the land of Canaan were meant to predict Israel’s future conquest of the land. Similarly, when Jeremiah tells Serayah to read his prophecies and then to bind them to a rock and throw them into the Euphrates, he is performing a sympathetic rite that is meant to be symbolic or an imaginative prediction of what the future holds (See Jeremiah 51:59-64). Similarly, the use of the staff is meant to be a sympathetic of what is about to befall Egypt. Moses performs three acts with his staff: he turns the staff into a serpent; he causes his arm to become leprous and he makes the water turn into blood. (Exodus, Chapter 4) These three acts are all necessary in showing Egypt the power of God. Even though the staff was created on the eve of the creation of the world (Pirke Avot) for the purpose of performing good acts for the people of Israel, the use of the staff in these three acts shows that the staff can also be used for the purpose of punishing Egypt as well. Also, the three acts symbolize the three types of plagues included in the ten plagues: some were performed by means of the staff; some by Moses; and some by the Holy One. The word “sign” is a way of referring to sympathetic acts. The serpent was a symbol of the power of the staff. The transformation of Moses’ hand to leprosy was symbolic of his role in the performance of the plagues. The transformation of the river to blood was symbolic of the power of God to reverse something created for compassion to something that could carry out judgment. In each case the symbolic act transforms goodness to punishment.