Post 12

Bob Marley's song, "Exodus", clearly rings a bell in relation to the video we watched in our last class of the Jews of South Africa being taken to Israel. What makes this interesting is that Bob Marley is referring to is when the Hebrews fled to Egypt due to the famine. However, Bob Marley isn't Jewish and seems to be using it as a metaphor for societal change. I did a little background on Marley and found that he was Rastafarian, which is a combination of Christian and Jewish religions. Marley's music has been known to be very rebellious. This leads me to believe that this song was meant to preach to everyone that the "captives" need to be set free and the every one must "rule equality".

Exodus, the biblical passage, talks about Hebrews that were enslaved in Egypt. I think Marley's main purpose in this song is to protest against human rights that have been lost. Thus, the people he is talking about are "enslaved" in a sense. Though he may be religious, Marley isn't really talking directly about religion. He is using the religious passage to discuss problems that are happening from and social and political standpoint.

Obviously this is only one interpretation. However, lyrics like "come to break downpression" and "wipe away transgression" are applicable to the way certain peoples are treated. I'm not sure what the time frame was or what was happening globaly at the time this song was written, but Marley definitely had some sort of cause for writing this song.