Exodus 5:22-23

"And Moses returned unto Jehovah, and said, Lord, wherefore hast thou dealt with this people? why is it that thou hast sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath dealt with this people; neither hast thou delivered thy people at all"

These are tragic words indeed. Not only were the people discouraged by the disastrous situation in which they found themselves, but Moses also was sorely oppressed by the thoughts which crowded into his mind. In that dark moment, however, Moses did what every child of God should do in like moments of frustration and doubt. He went straight to God with the problem.

"Moses returned unto Jehovah ..." "We are not to understand that Moses had forsaken God and now `returned' to him, but simply that in his trouble he had recourse to God, took his sorrow to the Throne of Grace, and poured it out before the Almighty."[21] Neither Moses nor the people, at that point in time, could see that real progress had already been made.

1. There had been a very necessary unification of the people in that the "officers" were enrolled among the oppressed, along with all the people.
   
2. By Pharaoh's refusing a perfectly reasonable and legitimate request of his workers to go sacrifice to their God, he firmly established himself as an unqualified enemy of God, and that, not upon the refusal of the preposterous proposition that he give up his entire nation of slaves completely, but by his refusal of a request which every intelligent person in Egypt recognized as reasonable and lawful. There had been no deception whatever in Moses' first request for the mere "three days" into the wilderness. God already knew what Pharaoh would do, and therefore allowed him to hang himself on the short rope instead of the long one! This first confrontation, therefore, set the stage and paved the way toward the ultimate, final, and total achievement of the purpose of God. The next confrontation would begin soon.