on that is in the sea' (Isa. xxvii.
1). Likewise, with regard to behemoth upon a thousand mountains, He
created them male and female; but if they had been joined together they
would have desolated the whole world. What then did the Holy One do? He
enervated the male behemoth, and made the female barren, and preserved her
for the righteous in the time to come. That period is to be a season of
great feasting. The liquor to be drunk will be apple-wine of more than
seventy years old. The cup of David alone will hold one hundred and
twenty-one logs. It is related that a Rabbi once saw in a desert a flock
of geese so fat that their feathers fell off, and the rivers flowed in
fat. He said to them, 'Shall we have part of you in the world to come?'
One of them lifted up a wing and another a leg, to signify the parts we
shall have. We should otherwise have had all parts of these geese, but
that their sufferings are owing to us. It is our iniquities that have
delayed the coming of the Messiah, and these geese suffer greatly by
reason of their excessive fat, which daily increases, and will increase
till the Messiah comes."

Rabba bar Chama says that he once saw "a bird so tall, that its head
reached to the sky and its legs to the bottom of the ocean." The water in
which it stood was so deep that a carpenter's axe which had fallen in
seven years before had not then reached the bottom. He also saw "a frog as
large as a village containing sixty houses." This frog was swallowed up by
a serpent, and this serpent in turn by a crow; this crow flew, and perched
upon a cedar, and this cedar was as broad as sixteen wagons abreast. There
is also an account of a fish which was killed by a worm. This fish, when
driven ashore, destroyed sixty cities, and sixty cities ate of it, and
sixty cities salted it, and with its bones the ruined cities were rebuilt.
Stories are also told of fishes with eyes like the moon, and of horned
fishes three hundred miles in length. These stories are intended to
confirm the text, "They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business
in great waters; these see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the
deep" (Ps. cvii. 23, 24). To illustrate the statement of Amos (iii. 8), a
story is told of a lion which one of the Caesars wished to see. At 400
miles distance he roared, and the walls of Rome fell. At 300 miles he
again roared, and all the people fell on their backs, and their teeth fell
out, and Caesar fell off h