# let my people go

idiom · CEFR C1

Source: https://englishreference.com/idiom/let-my-people-go
Updated: 2026-07-29

## Meaning

A demand for the freedom of an oppressed group from those who hold power over them.

## Examples

- The protesters' banner read simply: "Let my people go."
- The activist ended every speech with the old demand — let my people go — and the crowd finished it with her.
- When the exiled leader addressed the assembly, he cast the whole struggle in three words, "let my people go," and dared the government to explain why it would not.

## Origin

In Exodus 5:1, Moses and Aaron come before Pharaoh with a demand from God: "Let my people go." The Israelites are slaves in Egypt, and the phrase opens the long confrontation — the plagues, the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, the eventual flight — that ends in their escape. The words are a demand, not a request. They frame liberation as something owed, not granted, and they put the moral weight squarely on the one holding others captive. That framing gave the phrase a long afterlife. It became a rallying cry against slavery and injustice — most famously in the African-American spiritual "Go Down, Moses" — and today "let my people go" is invoked whenever a group demands its freedom from an oppressor who is refusing to grant it.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.