Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea.
Behold, the four winds - answering to the "four beasts." Thus what is implied is their several conflicts in the four quarters or directions of the world.
Strove - burst forth (from the abyss). (Maurer.)
Upon the great sea - the world-powers rise out of the agitations of the political sea (Jeremiah 46:7-8; Luke 21:25: cf. Revelation 13:1, "I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns," see my note there; Revelation 17:15; Revelation 21:1); the kingdom of God and the Son of man, on the contrary, comes from the clouds of heaven (Daniel 7:13: cf. John 8:23). Tregelles takes "the great sea" to mean, as always elsewhere in Scripture (Joshua 1:4; Joshua 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 until Nebuchadnezzar's time, when both things took place simultaneously. Persia encircled more of this sea-namely, from the Hellespont to Cyrene. Greece did not become a monarchy before Alexander's time, but then, succeeding to Persia, it became mistress of Jerusalem. It surrounded still more of the Mediterranean, adding the coasts of Greece to the part held by Persia. Rome, under Augustus, realized three things at once-it became a monarchy, became mistress of the last of the four parts of Alexander's empire (symbolized by the four heads of the third beast), and of Jerusalem, and it surrounded all the Mediterranean.