Exodus 5:22 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

Moses returned unto the Lord. — He could find nothing to say to the officers. The course of events had as much disappointed him 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 burthens and aggravated the misery of his countrymen was more than he could bear without complaining