The man, who dominated Israel for decades, split the country, region and much of the world over his record as a soldier and statesman.
President Shimon Peres, among the last surviving members of Israel's founding generation, called Mr Sharon a brave soldier and a daring leader and one of Israel's most important architects.
Mr Sharon knew no fear and never feared vision. He made difficult decisions and implemented them.
Columnist Chemi Shalev wrote Mr Sharon's legacy defies definition and is as full of contradictions as the man himself.
He was the epitome of the dichotomic cliche ''you either loved him or you hated him'', Mr Shalev wrote, noting may Israelis often felt both.
For Mr Sharon was not universally loved and respected in Israel.
And among the many thousands of people who filed past his flag-covered coffin was a Belgian businessman with a velvet skullcap who despised Mr Sharon's moves regarding the Palestinians, saying he had come to ensure he was dead.
Orit Struck, a member of Parliament from the right-wing Jewish Home faction, wrote on Facebook: ''We must also thank God Sharon was removed from our public lives'' before he might have dismantled Jewish settlements in the West Bank as he did in Gaza.
Baruch Marzel, a religious settler in Hebron, wrote on a Hebrew website Mr Sharon would be ''remembered in eternal disgrace in the book of traitors against the Jewish people''.
Mr Sharon died at the weekend aged 85, after eight years of minimal consciousness following a stroke that felled him at the height of his power.
A military funeral is scheduled for today (NZ time) on a hill overlooking his sprawling sheep farm in the Negev desert after an earlier memorial service at Parliament.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with United States Vice-President Joe Biden, are named among the eulogisers.
Israel and the US have a firm and close relationship which has made the concept of ''Peace in the Middle East'' something of a elusive goal for many years.
Some of the world's greatest statesmen and women have come and gone without solving what appears to be an enduring conflict.
Many of Mr Sharon's supporters see the loss of the man the Israelis call ''the bulldozer'' as further weakening the remaining links to the generation that fought militarily and politically for the creation of their state.
But debate over his record and legacy will centre on the opposites of war hero or war criminal.
Palestinians and left-wing critics focused on Mr Sharon's responsibility for the massacre of hundreds of Palestinians at refugee camps in Beirut in 1982, the huge expansion of Jewish settlements, his decision to build the separation barrier in the West Bank and his deliberately provocative walk on the Temple Mount, or Haram al-Sharif, which triggered the second intifada in 2000.
On the right, there is persistent bitterness over his disengagement policy under which he withdrew Israel settlers and troops from Gaza.
Mr Netanyahu, who was a political adversary of Mr Sharon and opposed his move to withdraw from the Gaza strip in 2005, emphasised Mr Sharon's key roles in security and government but did not mention the controversial disengagement.
Mr Netanyahu recalled Mr Sharon's central role in the struggle for Israel's security over the years.
He was, first and foremost, a courageous fighter and an outstanding general.
Historians will take their respective stances on the life and legacy of Mr Sharon and so too will those who live in or study Israeli politics and the military.
What cannot be diminished is the colossus Mr Sharon became from the military leader who defied orders to lead troops across the Suez Canal during the 1973 war to the country's top politician.
If indeed, the death of Mr Sharon is a further weakening between the military past of Israel, when young men and women fought for their very existence, and a move towards a future of diplomacy and reconciliation, he may possibly leave behind a legacy of hope.
