Daniel spoke and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea.
All Commentaries on Daniel 7:2 Go To Daniel 7
Jerome
AD 420
The four winds of heaven I suppose to have been angelic powers to whom the principalities have been (p. 528) committed, in accordance with what we read in |72 Deuteronomy: "When the Most High divided the nations and when He separated the children of Adam, He established the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the angels. [Jerome here follows uncritically the Septuagint, which read benev 'el ("sons of God") instead of the Massoretic beney Yisra'el ("sons of Israel"). Since in his own Vulgate translation Jerome followed the Massoretic text and rendered filiorum Israel, he must have written this Commentary before he translated the Pentateuch.] For the Lord's portion is His people; Jacob is the line of His inheritance (B) (Deut. 32:8). But the sea signifies this world and the present age, overwhelmed with salty and bitter waves, in accordance with the Lord's own interpretation of the dragnet cast into the sea (Matt. 13). Hence also the sovereign of all creatures that inhabit the waters is described as a dragon, and his heads, according to David, are smitten in the sea (Ps. 73). And in Amos we read: "If he descends to the very depth of the sea, there will I give him over to the dragon and he shall bite him" (Amos 9:3). But as for the four beasts who came up out of the sea and were differentiated from one another, we may identify them from the angel's discourse. "These four great beasts," he says, "are four kingdoms which shall rise up from the earth." And as for the four winds which strove in the great sea, they are called winds of heaven because each one of the angels does for his realm the duty entrusted to him. This too should be noted, that the fierceness and (664) cruelty of the kingdoms concerned are indicated by the term "beasts."
