When Israel prepared to sound their praises to God for delivering
them from destruction in the Red Sea, God, to show His
recognition of Israel's fulfillment of the token of the Abrahamic
covenant, bade the angels who came to intone their song, wait:
"Let My children sing first," He said. This incident with the angels
is like the story of the king who, upon returning from a victorious
campaign, was told that his son and his servant were waiting with
wreaths in their hands, and were asking who should first crown
him. The king said, "O ye fools, to question if my servant should
walk before my son! No, let my son come first!"

This was the second time the angels were obliged to retire before
Israel. When Israel stood by the Red Sea, before them the rolling
waters, and behind them the hosts of Egypt, then, too, the angels
appeared, to sing their daily song of praise to the Lord, but God
called to them, "Forbear! My children are in distress, and you
would sing!"

But even after the men had completed their song, it was not yet
given to the angels to raise their voices, for after the men followed
the women of Israel, and only then came the turn of the angels.
Then they began to murmur, and said, "Is it not enough that the
men have preceded us? Shall the women come before us also?"
But God replied, "As surely as ye live, so it is." [60]

At first Israel requested their leader Moses to begin the song, but
he declined, saying, "No, ye shall begin it, for it is a greater mark
of honor to be praised by the multitude than by a single one." At
once the people sang: "We will glorify the Eternal, for He has
shown us signs and tokens. When the Egyptians passed the decree