“Exodus” by Bob Marley and the Wailers

Exodus
Island Records
1977




This is a song that equates the Biblical story of the exodus of the people of Israel with modern-day conflicts. Bob Marley sees the liberation of any people anywhere from tyranny as a movement of God that has parallels to the Bible story.

Exodus, movement of Jah people, oh yeah

Open your eyes and let me tell you this

Men and people will fight ya down

When ya see Jah light

Let me tell you, if you're not wrong

Ev'rything is alright

So we gonna walk

Alright, through the roads of creation

We're the generation

Trod through great tribulation

Exodus, movement of Jah people

Open your eyes and look within

Are you satisfied with the life you're living?

We know where we're going

We know where we're from

We're leaving Babylon

We're going to our fatherland

Exodus, movement of Jah people

Send us another Brother Moses

Gonna cross the Red Sea

Exodus, movement of Jah people

Open your eyes and look within

Are you satisfied with the life you're living?

We know where we're going

We know where we're from

We're leaving Babylon

We're going to the fatherland

Exodus, movement of Jah people

Jah come to break down

'pression, rule equality

Wipe away transgression

Set the captives free

Exodus, movement of Jah people

Interpretation

Exodus, movement of Jah people, oh yeah

Open your eyes and let me tell you this

This stanza introduces the central idea behind the song: the Biblical story of the exodus, which involves a “movement” of people from one reality to another. In the Biblical story it is the people of Isreal from Egypt to the Promised Land. Today that “movement” involves oppressed people finding deliverance from the forces that subjugate them. The narrator implores listeners to “open your eyes” to the truth.

Men and people will fight ya down

When ya see Jah light

Let me tell you, if you're not wrong

Ev'rything is alright

So we gonna walk

Alright, through the roads of creation

We're the generation

Trod through great tribulation

In this stanza the narrator promises that if we do wake up and stand up for the oppressed, people will resist us; they’ll “fight ya down”. However, the narrator says that if we are right then we don’t need to worry about those who tear us down. We will walk through this fight (“through the roads of creation”) with God’s power leading us. The narrator envisions the “tribulation” as the ongoing problem of oppression in our world.

Exodus, movement of Jah people

This stanza repeats the central idea, coupling modern liberation struggles with the Hebrew exodus.

Open your eyes and look within

Are you satisfied with the life you're living?

We know where we're going

We know where we're from

We're leaving Babylon

We're going to our fatherland

In this stanza the narrator again appeals to us to analyze our lives to determine if we are really on the side of good. He claims assurance in their struggle and again uses Biblical imagery to describe their movement out of “Babylon”, which is a pseudonym for modern empires. In our world today these empires are in fact opposing God by opposing those whom God is for.

Exodus, movement of Jah people

Send us another Brother Moses

Gonna cross the Red Sea

This stanza again refers to the Bible story. The singer asks God to send us a prophet (“another Brother Moses”) who will part the seas in their struggle just like the first Moses led the Isrealites to “cross the Red Sea”.

Exodus, movement of Jah people

Open your eyes and look within

Are you satisfied with the life you're living?

We know where we're going

We know where we're from

We're leaving Babylon

We're going to the fatherland

Exodus, movement of Jah people

Jah come to break down

'pression, rule equality

Wipe away transgression

Set the captives free

This stanza is sung directly to Jesus. Jesus came to “break down” oppression, to institute the seeds to a just kingdom, to wipe away our sin or “transgression”, and to set “the captives free”. This refers to Jesus’ statement of his own purpose in Luke 4.

Exodus, movement of Jah people