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Can’t be literal days IF the 4th Beat really IS Rome, as I’m well aware that many have opined.

HERE’S WHERE I start to not to be able to buy into that idea:
IF the 4th Beast is Rome, we have a problem, because Daniel gives that 4th Beast a peculiar description that does not fit. Among all that Daniel says about this 4th Beast, he takes particular note that, “It was different from all the beasts that came before it..”
— Dan. 7:24

I think we really have to ask “Why does Daniel make a point of saying this?”

I think we have to recognize that the prior beasts were all the same kind of thing in such a way that this 4th Beast stands out as totally unique among them; it’s “Sesame Street” in Bible Prophecy, and “One of these things is NOT like the others. One of these thing just DOESN’T belong.”

The 4th Beast is REALLY THAT DIFFERENT.

Daniel’s language has that sort of heft to it.

Each of the first three beasts, though they differed from each other as kingdoms among men always do — size, strength, laws, character, etc — were still all conquering geopolitical powers in the world of men; they were all of the same sort of thing.

So, Daniel 7:24 cannot simply be noting “here’s yet another power in the world that differs from the earlier kingdoms in the same way they differed from one another.” The fact that Daniel notes it so specifically begs to correlate with a unique and substantive aspect in which the 4th Beast differs from ALL priors.

I think this intensely dissuades from naming just one more geopolitical power as the 4th Beast. Even given the prominence of the Roman Empire, at the day’s end it’s just another kingdom among those of men. Yes, Rome was really great in the Earth, but there’s nothing about it that’s so strikingly unique that readily fits with the Prophet pointedly calling the difference to our attention.

All that to say, because Daniel notes specifically that the 4th Beast is different from the prior beasts, I think we need to expect it to be REMARKABLY, STRIKINGLY different; of an utterly different nature than the others, like it’s NOT another geopolitical power, not just another strong, conquering nation, but some sort of system that gains global reach, and subsumes the sovereignty of all nations; maybe an Islamofascist Caliphate, or perhaps a medico-bureaucratic authoritarian entity.

Daniel has me convinced the 4th Beast is THAT substantively different.