Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

The Exodus Rap

Well my name is Moses, you can call me Mo,
I was found in the bulrushes ages ago.
Grew up in the palace,
Tutankhamen was my neighbor.
We lived like kings thanks to cheap slave labor.
(Snap snap) Boy! Bring me another cheese blintz–
I was the first Jewish Egyptian Prince.

(CHORUS)

Go go! Go Moses, go go go!
(Let my people
Let my people
Let my people)
Go Go! Go, Moses, Go go go!

Just chillin’ out, took a walk by the Sphinx
Saw a foreman beat a Jew
And I thought, “That stinks.”
So I picked up a brick
Took aim at the dummy.
Next thing you know he was dead as a mummy.
(Snap snap) I wasn’t caught, in God I trusted,
Then Pharaoh said that I was busted!

I fled to the desert and got me a wife
We lived your basic Iron Age agrarian life
Till one day I saw a
Burnin’ bush that set me thinking:
“Either that’s God
Or I should cut down on my drinking.”
“Hey, Mo!” cried the bush, “You listen to me.
I got you booked in Egyptland A.S.A.P.!”

CHORUS

“Let my people go,” I said, “Pharaoh, pleeease!”
“No way, Mose, they’re staying with me,
‘Cause someday this will make
A great Middle East western –
You know you look a lot like Charlton Heston?
(Snap snap) Men, take away this two-bit shaman.”
Yo God it’s time to send the first plague in.

Here come da plagues! Here come da plagues!
“Hi, we’re the Plagues, party of ten.
We’re here for the Moses thing?”

Well I made the river run red with blood,
Brought on the frogs and let ‘em play in the mud.
Folks got lice
And bugs were a-pesterin’
Dead cows, hail and boils were festerin.’
(Ding ding) “Attention, all you Kay-ro Shoppers:
Today our specials are darkness and hoppers.”

The king did not believe that things could worsen
So I played my ace and killed each first person.
But the angels of death
Passed every Jewish bro.
Pharaoh caught on and said, “All right, already. Go!”
(Snap snap) “Hurry up!” I said, “We’re on a roll!
Bring all your possessions and some unleavened dough!”

CHORUS

We fled to the desert, I parted the Red Sea,
It simpler to do than crossing Delancey.
The Egyptians drowned but
We all lived
And like I say, that’s my prerogative!
“Yo Mo! I got some tablets for you, you big macher.”
That must be God–he thinks he’s a doctor.

I climbed Mount Sinai and brought down the Torah,
But the Jews made a calf, Sherin begorra!
I threw down the stones
Stormed off to my tent
Said I wouldn’t come out till they’d repent.
Uh oh! “We’re sorry!” they cried this time,
So I got the 10 Commandments and started this rhyme.

CHORUS

Well my name is Moses, you can call me Mo
I was found in the bulrushes ages ago.
I freed the Jews and
Dried all their tears
But I feel like we’ve been wandering for 40 years.
(Snap snap): Well, time flies when you’re having fun
And like I say, “Next year in Jerusalem.”

Contact Lenore Skenazy at Lskenazy@yahoo.com

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at editorial@forward.com, subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.

Exit mobile version