Hi to all. I will reply to RickSahfer, but I hope I can teach everyone a good, absolutely critical, principle of interpretation.
There is only one honest way to interpret any authors work, that is ,to let the author, interpret his own work. If you know the author ,you need to interview him/her and ask, what did you mean? Since we can not interview God, we must do the needed task, be very careful to discover what God means,by allowing His book to interpret it self. Thus, grammatical, contextual historical interpretation. The context of every verse is the whole Bible. First the passage, then the book, then the whole Bible. If the passage is allegorical,we must allow God to give His own meaning, We are not being honest if we pretend to make a personal meaning, that is the Devils tactic,just make up any meaning that suits our purpose. 2Pet.1:21-22 says "...no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the holy Spirit. " We must , first, analysis, look at each part, and then synthesis, putting all the parts ,that relate, into a comprehensive. meaningful whole. we must put it together according to the topics.
By studying each passage ,we build our biblical theology; then we takes the parts and build our systematical theology.
So. lets look at Dan. 7:19-21 Who is the fourth beast? "which was different from all the others, exceedingly dreadful..teeth of iron...devoured,... trampled the residue with his feet....ten horns...the other horn...three fell...the same horn was making war against the saints,...
v22 until the Ancient of Days came... the time for the saints to possess the kingdom." vs 23-25 reiterates this truth of the fourth kingdom, "the ten horns are ten kings that arise from this kingdom...another... subdues three kings...persecute the saints...for a time and times and half a time." this kingdom,"shall be given to the ..saints of the Most High...His kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom.. This is the end..."
analysis done on this passage, but there are many more passages analyze before we make a judgement as to who/what this kingdom represents. Let me make an educated guess, it is the Roman empire of Jesus day, that is enlarged,or stretched out to include a further development of itself in the centuries to come ,after Jesus, because in the end the saints of God, the saved,Jews and gentiles, christians, , rule the world, this present earth, for 1,000 yrs, with Jesus our King.
I need to stop for tonight, more tomorrow. Hoffco ps, to RickShafer, 2,000 yrs of the "commercial system" is a part of this fourth kingdom.