What is the purpose of the four winds?

The four winds from heaven can be released by God’s prophetic authority (God’s  court house – Sanhedrin), to either stimulate the positive moral behavior in humanity, or they can also be released to stimulate the wrath of God which unleashes God’s judgement (conflict, curse, confusion, poverty, plagues, the raising of evil dictators, injustice, etc) among the wicked.

Ezekiel 37:9

Also He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Come from the fourwinds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.”’

Jeremiah 49:36

Against Elam I will bring the four winds From the four quarters of heaven, And scatter them toward all those winds; There shall be no nations where the outcasts of Elam will not go.

Zechariah 2:6-7

“Up, up! Flee from the land of the north,” says the Lord; “for I have spread you abroad like the four winds of heaven,” says the Lord.

 ⁷ “Up, Zion! Escape, you who dwell with the daughter of Babylon.”

Matthew 24:31

And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Mark 13:27

And then He will send His angels, and gather together His elect from the four winds, from the farthest part of earth to the farthest part of heaven.

Revelation 7:1-3 – The Sealed of Israel

7 After these things I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, on the sea, or on any tree. 

² Then I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God. And he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea, 

³ saying, “Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.”