The Mekhilta notices a subtle but important contradiction in the Song of the Sea and resolves it with a vivid image of what actually happened to the Egyptian soldiers in the Red Sea.
One verse uses the word "ramah" to describe what God did to the Egyptians — "He lifted into the sea." Another verse uses "yarah" — "He cast into the sea." These are opposite motions. "Ramah" means to raise, to lift upward. "Yarah" means to hurl downward, to throw. How can both be true at the same time?
The Mekhilta reconciles the two verses by explaining that both happened — sequentially. First "ramah": the Egyptians rose to the heights. The waters surged upward and carried the soldiers skyward, lifting them high above the surface. Then "yarah": they plunged down into the depths. The same waters that hurled them upward then dragged them down to the bottom of the sea.
The picture that emerges is not a simple drowning where people sink once and disappear. It is a violent churning — the Egyptians were launched upward by the force of the collapsing walls of water, tossed into the air, and then slammed back down into the abyss. Up and then down. Lifted and then hurled. The two verbs capture two phases of the same catastrophic event.
This close reading of a single Hebrew word is characteristic of the Mekhilta's method. Even the choice between near-synonyms carries meaning. God did not merely drown the Egyptians — He demonstrated absolute control over their bodies, raising and casting them at will.