NOTES for Exo 5:22-6:30
It is not surprising that the first failure discouraged the people who, expecting immediate results from Moses' intervention, received only additional problems (Ex 5:22–23). Against this background, the bewilderment of Moses himself seems stranger, for God had apparently warned him that the Exodus would by no means be a simple or swift undertaking (Ex 3:18–20). Then, in answer to his bewilderment, God tells Moses something very important about His relationship with His people (Ex 6:2–8). On the one hand, God reveals His new name to Moses, the name Yahweh (traditionally rendered by the title “Lord” in the Synodal translation), while stressing that He did not reveal Himself to the “fathers” by this name (Ex 6:3); on the other hand, He tells Moses of the new, special and trusting relationship that will henceforth bind Him to the descendants of Jacob (Ex 6:6–8). This clearly concerns a covenant, a union between God and the people that presupposes a new quality of relationship. The new name also points to this: in antiquity a change of name was usually associated with a serious inner change in the person whose name was altered. God, of course, does not change as a human being does, but His relationship with His people can change. Here we see precisely such a change, one that is very important for understanding the whole subsequent history of the Jewish people: from now on, after the covenant has been concluded, there is no room for accident or arbitrariness in the people's life. Everything that happens to them will be determined by their relationship with God and will depend upon that relationship. Of course, this does not mean that the people of God will never again have problems, but the bleak hopelessness that marked the final decades of life in Egypt will indeed never return. If so, the dealings with Pharaoh cannot end in failure. Only time is needed, and very little time compared with the hard decades already endured. Yet only someone for whom the covenant is an unquestionable reality can understand this. Even Moses himself did not grasp that reality at once. It is therefore unsurprising that to everyone else the situation appeared hopeless (Ex 6:9). And then God begins to act.