You need to wrap your string in a Throwable:
(throw (Throwable. "Some text"))
or
(throw (Exception. "Some text"))
You can set up a try/catch/finally block as well:
(defn myDivision [x y]
(try
(/ x y)
(catch ArithmeticException e
(println "Exception message: " (.getMessage e)))
(finally
(println "Done."))))
REPL session:
user=> (myDivision 4 2)
Done.
2
user=> (myDivision 4 0)
Exception message: Divide by zero
Done.
nil