And four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another.
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.
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.
Commenting on Daniel 7:1-8
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...