Why Each Empire Felt Worse Than the Last

A single verse from Deuteronomy captured the entire emotional arc of Jewish exile. "In the morning you will say: Would that it were evening, and in the evening you will say: Would that it were morning" (Deuteronomy 28:67). The rabbis of SAFE0 Rabbah saw in this verse not one exile, but four, each more unbearable than the last.

The first interpretation reads the verse as four parallel cries. "In the morning" of Babylonia, the Jews said: if only it were already evening, if only this were already over. In the morning of Media, the same cry. In the morning of Greece, again. In the morning of Edom (the rabbinic name for Rome), the same desperate longing for nightfall. Each empire brought its own dawn of terror, and under each one, Israel wished only for it to end.

But the second interpretation is darker. It is not that each exile made them wish for its own end. It is that each exile made them wish for the next one. In the morning of Babylonia, they said: if only it were the evening of Media. Under Media, they longed for Greece. Under Greece, they prayed for Rome. Each new oppressor seemed preferable to the current one, until they arrived and proved just as terrible.

The verse explains why: "from your heart's fear that you experience and your eyes' sight that you see" (Deuteronomy 28:67). The dread was both internal and visible. The heart imagined horrors, and the eyes confirmed them. The midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary) uses this to frame the Esther story as one stop in an unbroken chain of suffering, where every empire that rose over Israel brought the same desperate, cyclical plea: let this be the last one.

“In the morning you will say: Would that it were evening, and in the evening you will say: Would that it were morning – from your heart’s fear that you experience and your eyes’ sight that you see” (Deuteronomy 28:67).“In the morning you will say: Would that it were evening” – in the morning of Babylonia you will say: ‘Would that it were its evening.’ In the morning of Media, you will say: ‘Would that it were its evening.’ In the morning of Greece, you will say: ‘Would that it were its evening.’ In the morning of Edom, you will say: ‘Would that it were its evening.’Alternatively, “in the morning you will say: Would that it were evening,” in the morning of Babylonia you will say: Would that it were the evening of Media. In the morning of Media, you will say: Would that it were the evening of Greece. In the morning of Greece, you will say: Would that it were the evening of Edom. Why? “From your heart’s fear that you experience and your eyes’ sight that you see” (Deuteronomy 28:67).