Daniel 7:2

“Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, etc.] He declared he had had a vision by night, and this was the substance of it: and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea: the east, west, north, and south winds, broke out from each of their quarters, and rushed in upon the great sea; either the Mediterranean, so called in comparison of the sea of Sodom, and the sea of Tiberias in Judea; or upon the waters of the main ocean, and raised up its waves, and seemed as it were to be striving and fighting with them, and put them into a strange agitation; by which may be meant the whole world, and the kingdoms and nations of it, because of its largeness, inconstancy,…”

“the four winds--answering to the "four beasts"; their several conflicts in the four quarters or directions of the world. strove--burst forth (from the abyss) [MAURER]. sea--The world powers rise out of the agitations of the political sea (Jer 46:7-8; Luk 21:25; compare Rev 13:1; Rev 17:15; Rev 21:1); the kingdom of God and the Son of man from the clouds of heaven (Dan 7:13; compare Joh 8:23). TREGELLES takes "the great sea" to mean, as always elsewhere in Scripture (Jos 1:4; Jos 9:1), the Mediterranean, the center territorially of the four kingdoms of the vision, which all border on it and have Jerusalem subject to them. Babylon did not border on the Mediterranean, nor rule Jerusalem, till…”

“Daniel spake and said - That is, he spake and said in the manner intimated in the previous verse. It was by a record made at the time, and thus he might be said to speak to his own generation and to all future times. I saw in my vision by night - I beheld in the vision; that is, he saw represented to him the scene which he proceeds to describe. He seemed to see the sea in a tempest, and these monsters come up from it, and the strange succession of events which followed. And behold, the four winds of the heaven - The winds that blow under the heaven, or that seem to come from the heaven - or the air. Compare Jeremiah 49:36. The number of the winds is here referred to as four as they are now,…”

“The four winds - Probably by the four winds of the great sea is signified commotions of contrary nations, striving together by wars, and producing these four beasts successively. Daniel 7:3”

“7:2 The sea is an image of evil or chaos in the Old Testament (see Ps 89:10; Isa 5:30; 57:20), as it was throughout the ancient Near East.”

“the four: Rev 7:1 the great: Rev 17:15 Daniel 7:3”

“With Dan 7:2 Daniel begins his written report: "Daniel began and said," introduces the matter. חזוי עם־ליליא, visions in (during) the night, cf. Dan 2:19. Dan 7:2 and Dan 7:3 describe the scene in general. The four winds of heaven break loose upon the great sea, and rage fiercely, so that four great beasts, each diverse from the others, arise out of its bosom. The great sea is not the Mediterranean (Berth., Ges., Hitz., Ewald), for such a geographical reference is foreign to the context. It is the ocean; and the storm on it represents the "tumults of the people," commotions among the nations of the world (Hv., Leng., Hofm., etc.), corresponding to the prophetic comparison found in Jer 17:12;…”