Daniel 7:3 (BSB)

Then four great beasts came up out of the sea, each one different from the others:

From Daniel 7. Also in the ESV.

Commentary on Daniel 7:3

• John Calvin (Reformed), Calvin's Commentaries on Daniel 7:3: After Daniel had beheld these great commotions which were shaking the earth in different parts, another vision was offered to him. What has already been said concerning the troubled sea and the conflict of the winds, is extended to the four monarchies, concerning which we shall now treat.
• Matthew Henry (Presbyterian), Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary on Daniel 7:1-8: The date of this chapter places it before ch. 5, which was in the last year of Belshazzar, and ch. 6, which was in the first of Darius; for Daniel had those visions in the first year of Belshazzar, when the captivity of the Jews in Babylon was drawing near a period.
• John Gill (Reformed Baptist), Exposition of the Old and New Testaments on Daniel 7:3: And four great beasts came up from the sea,.... Which are afterwards interpreted of four kings or kingdoms, Dan 7:17, which rose up in the world, not at once, but successively, and out of the sea or world, through the commotions and agitations of it; and these are the four monarchies, Babylonian, Persian, Grecian, and Roman; compared to "beasts", because of the rapine and violence...
• Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (Reformed), Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible on Daniel 7:3: beasts--not living animals, as the cherubic four in Rev 4:7 (for the original is a different word from "beasts," and ought to be there translated, living animals). The cherubic living animals represent redeemed man, combining in himself the highest forms of animal life. But the "beasts" here represent the world powers, in their beast-like, grovelling character.