Because Daniel doth not expound what is meant by winds, expositors think there is room left for every one's conjecture; wherein this seems most likely, that by the four winds of the great sea is signified commotions of contrary nations and factions, striving together by wars, and producing these four beasts successively. That this is often signified by winds, see Jeremiah 49:36, Jeremiah 51:1; in the destruction of Babylon, the first monarchy; and of Elam, i.e. the Persian monarchy. The great sea in Scripture is the Mediterranean Sea, called now the Levant, Archipelago, Straits, &c.
1. Comparatively; for the people called lakes seas, as the sea of Galilee, Gennesareth, Cinneroth, the Dead Sea, or lake of Sodom; but the Mediterranean was Jamma rabba, the great sea, for its length and breadth, above all the lakes put together, though it be itself but a lake in comparison of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
2. Great sea, because the great stage of action hath been on it, and adjoined to it; and all the four great monarchies have been masters of it.
3. Allegorically, for it is usual in Scripture to compare people to waters, and nations to seas, Revelation 13:1, Revelation 17:15; called so from the confused noise of it, Revelation 19:6, and from the unstableness of them, always running and rolling with every wind as it blows, endangering those that ride upon the backs of its swelling waves.