The Red Heifer Read as the Four Kingdoms and Edom's Fall

"A heifer" (Numbers 19:2) - this is Egypt, "Egypt is a very fair heifer" (Jeremiah 46:20). "Red" (ibid.) - this is Babylon, "you are the head of gold" (Daniel 2:38). "Unblemished" [perfect] (ibid.) - this is Media. Rabbi Chiya bar Abba said: The kings of Media were perfect; the Holy One, blessed be He, has nothing against them except the idolatry they received from their fathers alone. "In which there is no blemish" (ibid.) - this is Greece. When Alexander of Macedon would see Shimon the Righteous, he would rise to his feet and say, "Blessed be the God of Shimon the Righteous." The members of his palace said to him, "You rise before a Jew?" He said to them, "When I go down to battle, I see his likeness, and I am victorious." "Upon which no yoke has come" (ibid.) - this is wicked Edom, which did not accept upon itself the yoke of the Holy One, blessed be He. Not only did it not accept the yoke, but it reviles and blasphemes and says, "Whom have I in heaven?" (Psalms 73:25). "And you shall give it to Elazar the priest" (Numbers 19:3) - to the God who helps [a play on the name Elazar, El-ozer, "God helps"], the priest. "And he shall bring it outside the camp" (ibid.) - for He is destined to thrust the adversary [Seir/Esau] from His enclosure. "And he shall slaughter it before him" (ibid.) - "for the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah" (Isaiah 34:6). Rabbi Berekhya said: "a great slaughter in the land of Edom" (ibid.). "And he shall burn the heifer before his eyes" (Numbers 19:5) - "and it was given to the burning of the fire" (Daniel 7:11). "Its hide and its flesh and its blood with its dung he shall burn" (ibid.) - it and its dukes and its governors and its generals: "your wealth and your wares, your merchandise" (Ezekiel 27:27). Rabbi Shmuel bar Rav Yitzchak said: Even those who are from My assembly and came and joined your assembly - they too shall fall in the heart of the seas on the day of your downfall (ibid.).