The Mekhilta offers a parable that illuminates the logic behind the order of events at Sinai. A king of flesh and blood enters a new province. His servants immediately urge him: "Make decrees for them. Impose your laws." The king refuses. Not yet, he says. First, let them accept my rule. If they do not accept my rule, they will not accept my decrees.
The parable is transparent. The king is God. The province is Israel. The servants are the angels. And the decrees are the commandments of the Torah. The sequence matters: sovereignty first, legislation second.
This is exactly what happened at Sinai. God did not begin the revelation by listing prohibitions and obligations. He began with a declaration of identity: "I am the L-rd your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt." First He established who He was and what He had done for them. First He reminded them of the exodus, the plagues, the splitting of the sea. First He demonstrated that His sovereignty was not theoretical but proven through history.
Only after Israel acknowledged this relationship did the commandments follow. "You shall have no other gods" comes after "I am the L-rd." The prohibition depends on the prior acceptance of authority. Without the first statement, the second has no force.
The Mekhilta's parable teaches that the Torah is not a set of arbitrary rules imposed on a reluctant population. It is the legislation of an accepted sovereign, given to a people who had already said yes to the King. Obedience flows from relationship, not coercion. The decrees have weight because the rule was embraced first.