Daniel 7:2-3

2, 3. The four winds of the heaven [for the numerical symbolism see Introduction to Ezekiel, VIII] strove (literally, burst forth) upon the waters of the Mediterranean (Ezekiel 47:10) the great international ocean of the ancients, and therefore symbolic of all the imperial powers “of the earth” (Daniel 7:17, and compare Isaiah 17:0; Psalms 65:7) and out of this boiling tempest the prophet sees in vision each savage empire thrown up upon the shore (Daniel 7:4) in the form of a hideous wild beast (compare Isaiah 17:1; Isaiah 29:3; Isaiah 51:19; Ezekiel 17:3; Ezekiel 29:3; Revelation 13:1); each beast as diverse from the others as the kingdom which it represented was different. What a sublime stage and scenery for this sublimest “epic of history”!