I know what you’re thinking. They changed it to “meant” because obviously the actual rock was symbolic. This isn’t my point. What’s important here is to be true to the text. And to change it to “meant” lessens the impact of the words. We say “Christ is the Rock.” Not “Christ means the rock”. 

So moving right along…lets take the rock metaphor a step further. 

Briefly explaining the picture above:

1 Peter 2:8 (in context beginning with vs 4 which proves we are talking about Jesus) Jesus is the stone of stumbling and the rock of offense. NWT references Is 8:14 as the scripture this passage refers to. We can clearly see it describes this rock as Jehovah God himself.