A tribe — but the word's plain meaning is a STAFF, a rod, a branch (from natah, 'to stretch out, extend'). Israel's tribes are 'staffs': shoots off the one stock of Jacob, each a branch of the family tree, and each led by a man holding a chief's staff. Numbers prefers matteh where Genesis often used shevet (also 'rod/tribe'); the picture is the same — a people that is one tree with twelve branches. ⚠ Numbers 17 (already on these pages) turns the double meaning into a whole chapter: twelve mattot are laid up overnight, one per tribe with its chieftain's name on it, and the one that buds settles which matteh may approach — the object in each man's hand IS his tribe. The word occurs seventeen times there. Then Numbers 18:2 sets the two synonyms side by side in one phrase, matteh Levi shevet avicha, the only verse in the Bible that does so of a single tribe. ⚠ The rod's last appearance is the saddest: at Numbers 20:9 Moses takes 'the rod from before Jehovah' — the place Numbers 17:25 stored Aaron's budded staff as a sign — and uses it to hit a crag twice, after being told to speak to it. The staff that settled the priesthood by producing life is last seen being swung. → first discussed at Num 1:4