A figure in The Bible as in Literature that struggles through adversity is Moses. Moses is a biblical hero who leads the Hebrews, sons of Israel, out of Egypt. In the book of Genesis, Moses suffers because of discrimination, hate, and loyalty. Moses’s suffering is significant because he still manages to honor God. Moses represents the hardship and resilience of Hebrews in Ancient Egypt. Discrimination is one reason Moses suffers. Before Moses is born the Pharaoh sets out to kill all Hebrew boys. “When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women, and seen them upon the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, she shall live” (109). Moses’s mother protects her infant son by hiding him for three months, and then …show more content…
After Moses is found and adopted by the Pharaoh's daughter, his mother becomes his wet nurse. This job allows her to be close to him and raise him to understand who he really is, a Hebrew. When Moses is older, “He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian” (110). The next day Moses sees another Egyptian beating two Hebrews, and when Moses says to stop the Egyptian says, “Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian” (110). Moses fears word will spread of his murder. When the Pharaoh learns of the murder, he sentences Moses to death. Moses has one option; he runs away from his loved ones to the land of Midian. Moses suffers because he saves an innocent life from hate. The Egyptians, led by the Pharaoh have killed many Hebrew and Moses takes a stand against …show more content…
God asks Moses to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt to freedom when he is in exile. God says to Moses, “I have seen affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hands of the Egyptians… Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring forth my people the sons of Israel, out of Egypt” (112). After speaking to God, Moses returns to Egypt. He tells the Pharaoh to let God’s people go, but the Pharaoh doesn’t listen. God retaliates by sending the ten plagues to Egypt. In the first plague, the Nile turns to blood. In the last plague, the firstborn of every egyptian family dies. During the last plague, the Pharaoh's son dies, and he lets Moses and the Hebrews leave Egypt only to regret his decision and send his army after them. The Hebrews see the Egyptians chasing them and say to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, in bringing us out of Egypt?... For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness” (120-121). Moses struggles to calm the Hebrews and lead them to safety, but he is loyal to his promise to God. Suddenly, God sends an angel that empowers Moses to part the Red Sea for the Hebrews to cross. Even though Moses is successful he has troubles along the way. The
Here he is no longer ignorant to the world around him, here he experienced one of the darkest times in man's history. Elie having been through so much already lost his faith in god. Being treated like cattle every day, seeing hundreds killed and burned in the “chimneys,” and even watching live babies thrown into pits of fire was enough for him to lose his faith, something he had once adored so much. A pivotal moment in the story is the hanging of a young boy. When inmates were suspected of breaking the rules or attempting to start an uprising they were tortured for information and then sentenced to hang at the gallows. During this scene, one of the accused is a thirteen-year-old boy who was described to have the face of an angel. Wiesel brings him up to reinforce that his faith is gone, the death of the boy is the death of God to him, “Behind me I heard a man asking: ‘For God’s sake, where is God?’ And from within me, I heard a voice answer: ‘Where is he? This is where hanging from the gallows…’ That night the soup tasted of corpses.” And after that, we see him slowly begin to change as a person. Throughout the whole journey, Elie was lucky enough to be able to stay with his father. Through the text, one of Elie's main focuses is ensuring that his father is taken care of and no matter what happened they were to remain united. After rumors that the Russians are approaching begin
Elie is just a young boy whenever everything happens, and his faith in humanity is still quite strong. However, as time goes on, Elie is faced with an abundance of challenges and tasks that will test just how strong his faith is. Whenever Elie was young, he was curious about God and wanted to know more, causing him to soon meet Moshe the Beadle. Moshe was a strongly religious person and taught Elie almost everything he knew. In a way Moshe was Elie’s best friend. He lived a joyous life and loved all of the people surrounding him, until he disappeared with the Germans. All of the Jews believed that they were going to a “resort”, however, they were horifically wrong. The treatment they received from the Lagerkapo, was indescribably awful. Whenever Moshe was the only one to return and he was changed tremendously and kept screaming about how they were going to die and the Germans were going to hurt them, no one believed him and called Moshe crazy and felt pity for him. This was the first time that Elie’s faith in humanity was slightly tested. The first sign of no humanity that Elie noticed, was the first camp he was deported to, Birkenau, and saw young babies burning in a fire. Throughout the Holocaust, Elie loses all his faith that humans have potential. He believes they care more about their own survival than trying to help others. At this point, Elie has no faith in man and that the
Anyways, when Moses got home he told Sarah, his wife and Adam’s mother, what had happened at the meeting. They had discussed the military, more of a militia actually, Moses did not agree with the whole idea of a militia at all. Sarah told Moses how Adam felt about him hating his son and Moses just couldn’t believe it. He really loved Adam very much and was saddened to hear that Adam had felt that way. So Sarah read to him and they all went to bed.
After a brief stay at Auschwitz, they are moved to a new camp, Buna. At Buna, Elie goes through the dehumanizing process of the concentration camps. Both he and his father experience severe beatings at the hand of the kapos. All the prisoners are overworked and undernourished. Many lose faith in God, including Elie. He witnesses several hangings, one of a boy with an angelic face, and sees him struggle for over thirty minutes fighting for his life. To a stranger's cry of "Where is God now?", Elie answers: "He is hanging here on this gallows...." (p. 62). As Elie witnesses the hanging of the young pipel, he feels that it is his God who is hanging on the gallows. Elie i...
order to escape being killed. Not only did Moshe tell his story to Elie, he
Pharaoh also expresses more and more guilt as the plagues intensify but the instant there is a reprieve in the suffering the king reverts back to his old ways. This could be teaching us how only pressing needs create enough discomfort to grab our attention and make us want to change. Another way of viewing G-d’s actions is seeing them as a method of serving justice. Pharaoh, as well as the Egyptians, had 430 years to change the Israelites position in their society. Plaguing the land compensated for the mistreatment of the Israelites by inflicting suffering upon the Egyptians while favoring the Israelites. This partiality also builds faith between the Israelites and G-d, sending the broader message that G-d is watching over them. Moses patiently obeys G-d and ultimately his trust is rewarded. It is hard to tell if Pharaoh would have given in sooner without the stiffening of his heart by G-d. However, by enhancing Pharaoh’s stubbornness, G-d made possible a true punishment for the Egyptians and created a story that clearly has endured the test of
...nnel for the message to the Israelites. This serves God's ultimately purpose of setting his chosen people free. Although Moses does not seem like a worthy candidate for the task, God gives him the power to overcome his flaws. Moses was successful in communicating and obeying God's word throughout his journey, because he never sought to control or possess the land or the people, unlike Pharaoh. In the end, the journey of the spiritual hero can finish in either one of these two paths. It is up to the individual whether or not they will succumb to temptation and be led down into hell and remain there forever.
This section of exodus focuses on Moses, an Israelite who was raised as an Egyptian, who has fled from Egypt after the Pharaoh tried to kill him for killing an Egyptian man. By Exodus 3:1 Moses is married to Zipporah daughter of Jethro who gives him a job working as a shepherd. While tending to his animals Moses arrives at Horeb also known as Mount Sinai or the Mountain of God. Here Moses has his first theophany with God in the form of a burning bush. During this passage God talks to Moses telling him what he needs to do: go to Egypt and convince the Pharaoh to let the Egyptians go by performing a series of miracles. What god is asking Moses to do is intimidating. At this time the Pharaoh was the ruler of Egypt who had a powerful army and the Israelite’s weren’t going to be easy to convince that God sent him. Despite the “signs” Moses is reluctant to take the role beca...
Initially, Elie one of the most devout Jews in Sighet. On the contrary, as he is put through the nightmares of the concentration camps, he view of God changes. In the end, God is now the enemy and resentment floods over Elie. Elie’s physical and emotional abuse during the Holocaust is to blame for this change in Elie’s
There were literally thousands of people who needed help. Also, the Israelites were trying to survive in their early days after they were able to escape Egypt’s rule. The Sanhedrin and our church council today are very alike. “The Sanhedrin was an assembly of twenty-three to seventy-one men appointed in every city in the Land of Israel. In the Hebrew Bible, Moses and the Israelites were commanded by God to establish courts of judges, they were given full authority over the people of Israel; and the people were commanded by God to obey every word they have instructed and every law they have established.”
The five plagues that destroyed Egypt are the Nile river turned to blood, the frogs, the gnats, the flies, the pestilence, the boils, the nail, the locusts, the darkness, the death of the firstborn. The first plage was turning into the Nile river to blood this kills all the fish and all other life that only lives underwater and this makes them uneatable which made people who fished for food, starve or find a new way to get food. Then the second plage was the frogs which mad a bunch of frogs come out of the water and there was a frog wherever you looked there was a frog. Ones all the Frogs died the Gnates came in spreading the next plague the Pestilence. then there was Boils. The Pestilence killed all of the animals which means that they have
Before relationships begin to develop, each of the protagonists are in different positions. Moses is born a Hebrew, but growing up he is considered an Egyptian. When Moses flees to Midian and saves the
In the Bible we find that God does not allow Moses and Aaron to lead the people, just as they are about to proceed to conquer the Promised Land (Num 20:1-13). Denial of entry into the Promised Land could be an obvious expression of God’s anger. Because in Numbers 20:12 we read, “But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, Because you did not believe in me, to show my holiness before the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” What did they do or say that warranted such a harsh verdict? What was their sin?
The narrative similarly reveals that God is the one who gave Pharaoh the hardened heart through the phrase, “But I will harden His heart, so that He will not let the people go” (Verse 21). All the while, God tells Moses to tell Pharaoh to let His people go. God instructs Moses to also tell Pharaoh that God’s people are his “firstborn son” that need to be freed so that they can serve Him. If Pharaoh refused, Moses threatened him that God would kill his firstborn son. Thirdly, while Moses was at a place to rest, God contemplated killing him.
According to the book of Exodus in the Bible, Israel's future leader, Moses, was born at a very risky time. It was a time when the Jews in Egypt had increased in number and prospered so much that the Egyptian pharaoh decreed that every male Jew who was born at that time was to be killed. Moses was born a Jew. However, when his mother realized that, the time came for him to be born; she decided not to let him be killed and was eager to hide him. It was not possible though to keep him with her, for she would be found. Consequently, she decided to hide him among the reeds in the River Nile (Exodus 1-2 and QB VI...