When the people again cried for water, the Holy One's instruction to Moses, as Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders Exodus 17:5, is quietly pointed: Pass over before the people, and take with thee some of the elders of Israel, and the rod with which thou didst smite the river take in thy hand, and go from the face of their murmuring.
The rod. Not just any rod, but the rod with which thou didst smite the river, the same staff that had turned the Nile to blood (Exodus 7:20). The Targumist wants us to remember this staff's history. It had been an instrument of judgment against Egypt. Now, the same staff would become an instrument of mercy for Israel.
Think about the symbolism. When Moses first lifted that rod, the Nile, the source of all Egyptian life, turned to blood and could not be drunk. Now he lifts it again in the wilderness, and a rock will open and pour out water that can be drunk. The same rod. Opposite effects. Because the rod is only ever an extension of the hand that holds it, and the hand that holds it is directed by the Word of the Holy One.
The Targum adds another detail: take with thee some of the elders of Israel. Why the elders? So that there would be witnesses. Moses was never to perform a miracle alone if he could perform it with witnesses. The <a href='/categories/midrash-aggadah.html'>rabbinic tradition</a> reads this as a founding principle of Jewish leadership: miracles in public, with elders watching, so that the memory cannot later be doubted.
And the phrase go from the face of their murmuring. The Aramaic suggests physical distance. Step away from the grumbling crowd. Do not try to answer complaint with argument. Move forward, with the rod, with the elders, and let the miracle speak.
Takeaway: the same instrument can bring judgment or mercy, depending on who holds it and why. The hand on the rod matters more than the rod itself.