The Covenant Animals Foretell the Four Kingdoms of Exile

Another interpretation: "Take Me a heifer of three," this is Babylon, which raised up three: Nebuchadnezzar, Evil-merodach, and Belshazzar. "And a goat of three," this is Media, which raised up three: Cyrus, Darius, and Ahasuerus. "And a ram of three," this is Greece, which raised up three. As Rabbi Elazar said: They conquered all the directions, but the eastern direction they did not conquer. Rabbi Yochanan said to him: But is it not written, "I saw the ram pushing westward and northward and southward... and it did according to its will and became great" (Daniel 8:4)? It is the opinion of Rabbi Elazar that it does not say "eastward." "And a turtledove and a young pigeon," this is the fourth kingdom: a turtledove [tor] it is, except that it is a robber. "And he took for himself all these" (Genesis 15:10). Rabbi Yehudah and Rabbi Nechemiah. Rabbi Yehudah says: He showed him the princes of the nations of the world. According to Rabbi Yehudah, the seats of these face the seats of those; and according to Rabbi Nechemiah, it was there that the Great Sanhedrin sat and cut [decided] the judgments of Israel. "But the bird he did not divide": He showed him that whoever sets his face firmly against the wave, the wave washes him away, and whoever does not set his face against the wave, the wave does not wash him away. "And the birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away" (Genesis 15:11). Abraham took a beater and was beating them, yet they would not be beaten away. Even so, "Abram drove them away" in repentance. Rabbi Azariah said: When your children become carcasses without sinews and without bones, your merit will stand for them.