The Aramaic word for sea โ used in Daniel's visions of the four great beasts emerging from the churning cosmic sea.
The Aramaic yam (parallel to Hebrew H3220 yam) appears in Daniel 7:2-3 in one of the most consequential prophetic visions in Scripture: 'Daniel said: In my vision at night I looked, and there before me were the four winds of heaven churning up the great sea (yamma rabbah). Four great beasts, each different from the others, came up out of the sea.' The sea in Daniel's vision is the primordial chaos-sea โ the cosmic deep โ out of which empires rise and fall.
The cosmic yam in Daniel 7 draws on ancient Near Eastern mythology (the sea as the domain of chaos, darkness, and the powers hostile to God) and transforms it into apocalyptic vision. Four empires emerge from the churning sea like beasts โ Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek, Roman. But the Son of Man comes 'on the clouds of heaven' (Daniel 7:13) โ from above, not from below; from God's domain, not the chaos sea. Revelation 21:1 announces the ultimate eschatological reversal: 'There was no longer any sea.' The chaos-sea is abolished, and the New Jerusalem descends from heaven.