The Torah says simply that Pharaoh "harnessed his chariot" (Exodus 14:6). The Mekhilta reads those four words as a revelation of just how consumed Pharaoh was by his obsession to recapture the fleeing Israelites.
Normally, a king does not harness his own chariot. He stands to the side, surrounded by attendants, while servants equip the vehicle and prepare the horses. The king arrives when everything is ready, steps aboard, and rides out. This was standard protocol in the ancient world — a mark of royal dignity, a sign that the king was above manual labor.
Pharaoh broke every protocol. He harnessed and equipped the chariot himself, with his own hands. The wicked Pharaoh did not wait for servants. He did not delegate. He threw aside the conventions of kingship and rushed to prepare his own vehicle, so frantic was his determination to pursue Israel.
The Mekhilta then describes the ripple effect of Pharaoh's behavior. When the Egyptian nobles — the high-ranking officials and military officers — saw their king personally harnessing his chariot, every one of them rose and did the same. If the king himself was willing to perform servants' work, no nobleman could stand idle while others prepared his equipment.
Pharaoh's obsession became contagious. His rage traveled downward through the ranks of Egyptian society, turning the entire military apparatus into a mirror of his own fury. What began as one king's personal vendetta became a national frenzy — an entire army scrambling to chase after the slaves who had dared to leave. The Mekhilta saw in this detail a portrait of evil's self-defeating energy: the harder Pharaoh worked, the faster he rushed toward his own destruction at the sea.