According to McConkie and Millet, the phrase "East wind" is an Old World cultural symbol. The people of the Bible recognized the existence of four prevailing winds as issuing, broadly speaking, from the four cardinal points: north, south, east, and west. This is inferred from the custom of using the expression "four winds" as equivalent to the four quarters of the earth (see Ezekiel 37:9; Daniel 8:8; Zechariah 2:6; Matthew 24:31). The character of the directional winds was so consistent, varying not in nature but only in degree throughout the seasons, that they came to be viewed as messengers from God. The north wind is cold; the west wind coming from the Mediterranean Sea is moist; the south, warm; and the east, which crosses the sandy wastes of the Arabian Desert before reaching Palestine, can be violent and destructive. It was called "the wind of the wilderness" (Job 1:19; Jeremiah 13:24; cf. Genesis 41:6, 23, 27; Ezekiel 27:26; Psalm 78:26). [Joseph Fielding McConkie and Robert L. Millet, Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Vol. II, p. 187]