Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) a mild oath, great heavens!

1830		‘Messrs von Dunderhead’ The Budget 122: ‘By the jumping Moses,’ exclaimed the half-intoxicated farmer, ‘I begin to like you, Tom Rogers’ [...] ‘I like you, Tom Rogers, by the jumping Moses I do’.
1845		E.G. Paige Short Patent Sermons I 39: The boys never swear, except by the great jumping Moses, and the girls never allow themselves to be kissed till after marriage.
1859		‘Timothy Titcomb’ Letters to Young People 141: If a young man should ‘kind o’ shine up to you,’ and you should ‘cotton to him,’ and he should hear you say ‘by the jumping Moses,’ or ‘by the living jingo,’ [...] he would pretty certainly ‘evaporate.’.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 109: An effective ejaculation and moral waste pipe for interior passion or wrath is seen in the exclamation — by the ever-living-jumping-moses a harmless phrase, that from its length expends a considerable quantity of fiery anger.
1864		‘Ned Buntline’ Life in the Saddle 16: Jumping Moses! John, what a prize!
1868		Ballarat Star (Vic.) 12 Oct. 2/3: [He] enlivened the severity of his morality by playful appeals to his ‘word of honor as a gentleman,’ and by even more mercurial shouts of ‘jumpin’ Moses’.
1882		W.A. Baillie-Grohman Camps in the Rockies 60: By the jumping Moses, you’ve been and gone done it!
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 14 Mar. 14/4: Jumpin’ Moses! what are you laughing at! Every nubble of my back-bone’s skinned!
1894		Morn. Call (SF) 18 Feb. 11/2: By the Jumping moses, they monkey’s shot me.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 23 Jun. 7/1: What a theme for jewbilation! / Jumping Mo! it was not strange / That they made a demonstration / On the London Stock Exchange.
1905		N.Y. Tribune 7 May 6/1: Great jumping Moses! Wouldn’t you like to see him when the flowing tide comes in?
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 161/1: Jumping Moses (Amer.-Eng.). Exclamation equivalent to Great Heaven.
1919		Cayton’s Wkly (Seattle, WA) 8 Feb. 1/3: Jumping Moses, but it was fine.
1922		H. de Vere Stacpole Vanderdecken 219: He stepped on to the sand, [...] and then looked out to sea. ‘Jumping Moses!’ "What's wrong?" cried George.
		M. van Vorst Queen of Karmania 299: ‘Jumping Moses!’ exclaimed the Californian. ‘Go and get those filthy duds off you’.
1930		E. Wallace Nobby 434: ‘Jumping Moses!’ gasped Hamilton. ‘Where did you get that?’.
1935		W.M. Raine Border Breed 45: You couldn't get him to fight in that barbarous way [...] Jumping Moses, we'd carve each other to strips.
1948		S. Keyes Minos of Crete 81: Jumping Moses, I ain't never heard anything like it. A tart and a preacher!
1952		Adam Int’l Rev. 234 26: ‘Jumping Moses, it’s Jerry!’ Jamesie cried. ‘She’s waiting for us’.
1962		M.Z. Bradley Seven from Stars 47: Flying saucers— holy jumping Moses!
1976		Mag. Fantasy & Science Fiction 51 136/1: Holy Jumping Moses! You’re right! I am a dummy.