Kabbalah zu Ejchah 1:5

[The fourth exile] is called a pit where an ox has fallen. This is why it is written of Yosef, "The firstling of his herd, grandeur is his" (Deut. 33:17), of him it says, "And they...cast him into a pit" (Gen. 37:24), which is the female; "and the pit was empty" is the male, which is empty, without Torah, but with snakes and scorpions in it. This is the fourth exile, which is a generation of evil people, filled with snakes and scorpions that are scoundrels like snakes and who are scorpions (akrabim) since they uprooted (akru) the words of the sages and give false judgments. Of them it says, "Her adversaries have become the chief" (Eichah 1:5). "And he looked this way and that, and when he saw that there was no man" (Shemot 2:12) of Yisrael among the wicked mixed multitude. This will be at the end of exile. And because of that the end, the time of redemption bores all the way to the great abyss. And the Faithful Shepherd: Tehom [abyss see Gen. 1:2] is Hamavet [the death'] spelled backwards, and death is no other than poverty. It has been clarified up high, before the Tannaim and Amoraim, that they will all descend for your sake into the deep [the fourth exile], to help you.