NOTES for Exo 6:1-30
Moses’ demand that the people be released “for a three days’ journey into the wilderness” drew only a sneer from Pharaoh: who is this Yahweh that I should listen to Him? In such a situation, the only way out was God’s direct intervention in events. It followed soon after Moses’ return to Egypt. God appears to Moses, for the second time after Sinai, and reveals His name to him, the name Yahweh. The situation begins to resemble what happened in ancient times, in the days of the fathers, or patriarchs as we usually call them.
Then, too, God would first reveal Himself to one of them, establish or renew a covenant with him, and then, after a second appearance, begin to act by intervening directly in the events taking place. The same happens with Moses: first God appears to him and gives him the task he will have to fulfill; then, once Moses has arrived at the place, God reveals Himself to him again to say that He, God, is beginning to act. This logic is quite understandable and is explained by the very nature of God’s providence. In the fallen world, God always acts according to the situation.
He has His own plan, of course, but He must take account of the free will and choices of those who do not participate in carrying out His plan. To accomplish His plan, God must act not only in His own great world but also in the worlds separated from it by those who do not acknowledge His authority and do not wish to submit to His will.
He must act in such a way that those who do not want to know Him and do not acknowledge His will can, as the saying goes, keep what is theirs, and so that their right to a godless existence is not violated. In the fallen world, God must act in a way that leaves room in it for those who do not know Him and do not want to know Him. Meanwhile, people who do not know God inevitably produce chaos in their world separated from God, a chaos they themselves usually cannot make sense of.
God cannot put an end to it, or rather He can, but then the will of those who produced the chaos would be violated. Therefore God acts with precision, opening a path for those who follow His will. He acts in a specific place and at a specific moment, opening opportunities for His people to fulfill His will in an equally specific way indicated by Him. Thus God prepares the fallen world for its return, for its transformation into the Kingdom which, sooner or later, it will become in any event.