Scottish patriarchs looking for walking sticks, always passed over the untried wood of the lower slopes, climbing to the weathered heights to search for rods made strong by storm and wind. As young trees they had fought the winds, and with each battle they bent, twisted and broke a bit inside. But gradually each inner scar became steely fiber. Such Rods can speak to a threatened Pharaoh, or command water-walls to let the children pass. Such rods will make a deadly cobra.
Lightning rises off their knobby heads.
These rods of God were once just spindly trees. Bless not the rod, but rather bless the gales that broke their sinews, lacing them with stone, 'till the storms they so despised had changed them into scepters.