The Mekhilta highlights a detail about Miriam's song that establishes a fundamental principle about women's participation in Israelite worship. The verse says "And Miriam answered to them: Sing to the Lord, for He is exalted over all the exalted — horse and its rider He cast into the sea."
Scripture records this, the Mekhilta explains, to teach us that just as Moses chanted song to the men, so did Miriam chant song to the women. The celebration at the Red Sea was not a single event led by one person. It was a dual performance — two parallel songs, two leaders, two congregations — men and women each singing their own version of the same miraculous deliverance.
The Hebrew word "answered" is significant. Miriam did not simply repeat what Moses sang. She "answered" — the same word used for responsive or antiphonal singing. Her song was a response, a counterpart, a completion of the celebration that Moses had begun. Without Miriam's voice, the Song at the Sea would have been half a song.
This brief passage carries enormous weight in the rabbinic tradition. It establishes that women were not passive witnesses to the Exodus. They were active participants in the liturgical response to God's salvation. Miriam did not need Moses' permission to sing. She took up her timbrel and she answered — leading the women of Israel in a song that scripture considered important enough to record for all generations.