Charles Ellicott Commentary Exodus 5:22

"And Moses returned unto Jehovah, and said, Lord, wherefore hast thou dealt ill with this people? why is it that thou hast sent me?" — Exodus 5:22 (ASV)

Moses returned to the Lord. —He could find nothing to say to the officers. The course of events had disappointed him as much as it had them.

All that he could do was to complain to God, with a freedom which seems to us almost to border on irreverence, but which God excused in him, since it had its root in his tender love for his people.

Moses might perhaps have borne with patience a mere negative result—the postponement of any open manifestation of the Divine power—but the thought that he had increased the burdens and aggravated the misery of his countrymen was more than he could bear without complaining.