NOTES for Exo 5:22-6:30
It is no surprise that the first failure discouraged the people, who expected immediate results from Moses' intervention and received only additional problems (Ex 5:22-23). Against this background, Moses' own bewilderment looks more strange, since it would seem that God had warned him that the Exodus would be anything but simple or quick (Ex 3:18-20). And then, in response to this bewilderment, God tells Moses something very important about His relationship with His people (Ex 6:2-8).
On the one hand, God reveals to Moses His new name, the name Yahweh (traditionally rendered in the Synodal Translation by the epithet "the Lord"), while emphasizing that He had not revealed Himself to the "fathers" by this name (Ex 6:3); on the other hand, He tells Moses about the new, special, and trusting relationship that from now on will bind Him to the descendants of Jacob (Ex 6:6-8).
Clearly, this is about the Covenant, the union between God and the people, which presupposes a new quality of relationship. The new name points to the same thing: in antiquity, a change of name was usually connected with a serious inner change in the one whose name was changed. Of course, God does not change as a human being does, but His relationship with His people can change. And here we have just such a change, one that is very important for understanding all the later history of the Jewish people: from now on, after the Covenant is concluded, there is no room in the people's life for chance or arbitrariness; everything that happens to them will be determined by their relationship with God and will depend on that relationship.
Of course, this does not mean that God's people will never have problems again, but the dreary hopelessness that marked the last decades of life in Egypt will indeed never return. And if so, there can be no failure in dealing with Pharaoh. All that is needed is time, and not much time at all compared with the hard decades already lived through. But only someone for whom the covenant is an unconditional reality can understand this. Even to Moses himself this reality was not revealed at once. It is no surprise that to everyone else the situation looked hopeless (Ex 6:9). And then God begins to act.