Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea. The Septuagint omits the introductory clause, and renders, "On my couch I saw in my night-sleep, and, behold, the four winds of heaven fell upon the great sea."
Theodotion, like the LXX; omits the introductory clause, and renders, "I Daniel beheld, and, lo, the four winds of the heaven rushed upon (προσέβαλον) the great sea." The Peshitta seems as if transferred from the Massoretic text, the resemblance is so close.
The variations in the Greek Version may be due to condensation of a fuller narrative. The verb translated "strove" in our Authorized Version is better rendered, as in the Revised, "brake forth upon."
Luther's version is, "sturmeten wider einander." This, like the Authorized Version, seems to be the result of the Vulgate pugnabant. The only objection to this is that it ought to be followed by a preposition (Bevan).
The translation suggested by Levy, "stirred up," appears still better. The sea referred to is naturally to be taken as the Mediterranean; it is "the great sea" of the prophets (Ezekiel 47:10). Jerusalem is not so far from the sea but that Daniel might have seen it in his boyhood.
The symbolic meaning of the sea is the mass of heathen nations (Psalms 65:7). The "four winds of heaven" usually stand for the points of the compass (Jeremiah 49:34). Here, however, the winds are pictured as actual forces dashing down upon the sea, and stirring it up to its depths.
It may be objected that this is an impossible picture. It might be replied that Virgil, in the first book of the 'AEneid,' 84-86, and Milton, in 'Paradise Regained,' has the same thing. Daniel has more freedom, for he narrates a vision, and, further, to him the winds (rucheen) were under the guidance of angels.
Hitzig denies that the winds can be angelicae potestates, as Jerome maintains; and, when Jerome supports his position by a quotation from the Septuagint Version of Deuteronomy 32:8, gives as answer a mark of exclamation.
The passage, "He set the nations according to the number of the angels of God," represents a phase of thought in regard to angelology, which Daniel elsewhere obviously has. The double meaning of the word ruach made the transition easy.
We see the same double meaning in Zechariah 6:5. The sea, then, is to be regarded as the great mass of Gentile nations, and the winds are, therefore, the spiritual agencies by which God carries on the history of the world.
As there are four winds, there are also four empires. There are angelic princes of at least two of these empires referred to later. May we not argue that these empires had, according to the thought of Daniel, each an angelic head?
It may be doubted whether the most advanced critics know more of angelology than Daniel, or can be certain that his view was a mistaken one. Moreover, the Mediterranean Sea was the centre round which the epic of history, as revealed to Daniel, unfolded itself.
Nebuchadnezzar marched along the eastern shores of that midland sea; the Persian monarchs essayed to command it by their fleets; across a branch of that sea came Alexander; and from yet further across its blue waters came the Romans.
The Mediterranean saw most of the history transacted that took place between the time of Daniel and that of our Lord.