Major Paper #1- Topic 1
Moses and Jacob stand as among the greatest heroes in Hebrew tradition. In the stories of both Jacob and Moses, many parallels in the text may be observed, some of them being the special birth, the youthful deeds, flight as a result of the youthful deeds, marriage and offspring, commissioning by god at a sacred place, return to land and a dangerous encounter with the lord. Although the stories themselves seem to have great similarities, the characters themselves seem to at times, reflect the personalities of each other or differ greatly.
From the very beginning one may notice the cunning and trickery from which Jacobs personality stemmed, and represented. Jacob is the son of Isaac, who is the promised seed of Abraham. He was the product of an initially barren woman named Rebecca. As a result of Isaacs’s prayer to the lord, the once barren Rebecca was gifted with two sons, Jacob and Esau. An example of a truly miraculous birth. This is the beginning of our experience with Jacobs’s character. The text depicts our first experience of Jacobs’s determination to lead, at the moment of birth the text states ‘The first came out red, all his body like a hairy mantle, so they named him Esau. Afterward his brother came out, with his hand gripping Esau’s heel’ (Genesis…show more content… The character of Moses differs greatly from that of Jacobs. Unlike Jacob Moses seemed more to avenge the needy than to benefit himself, take for example the Hebrew being beaten by the Egyptian, Moses did jot hesitate to kill him, I do not agree that this was a just action, however I believe that it was more out of selflessness, and a sense of security towards his own people. Jacob on the other hand, although not accounted for murder and later underwent a drastic character evolvement, initially sought only to benefit himself, to reap all available advantages by means of cunning and