“When Moses Smote de Water” is a spiritual arrangement for voice and piano by Eva Jessye. The song is the eleventh arrangement included in Jessye’s book My Spirituals (1927). In the song’s preface, Jessye describes how she associates this tune with Uncle Holliday Buckner—a beloved, honest, and good-natured man who always saw the silver lining of the cloud. Jessye writes, “Small and bent, you could tell him at a distance, walking slowly with hands crossed behind him, usually whistling or humming an old hymn. Being impressed with a melody he often whistled, I followed him as he worked at the lilac bushes in his front yard until I learned it. It was ‘When Moses Smote de Water.’”
Print vitals & song textWhen Moses smote de water,
De chillun all crossed over.
When Moses smote de water,
The sea give away.
My ship is on the ocean,
The sea give away
But Jesus is my captain,
The sea give away.
When Moses smote de water,
De chillun all crossed over,
When Moses smote de water,
The sea give away.
Source: Jessye, Eva. My Spirituals. New York: Robbins-Engel, 1927.
