The field of eschatology is filled with assumptions that people have made. The point of prophecy is to draw attention to the One who sits outside of time and space and who is ultimately in control.
Remember what happened long ago,
for I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like Me.
I declare the end from the beginning,
and ancient times from what is still to come.
I say, ‘My purpose will stand,
and all My good pleasure I will accomplish.’Is 46:9-10
He can see the results of our freewill acts. A lot of that has been documented via the Prophets in the pages of the Bible. People approach these texts from a limited perspective. This sometimes leads to assumptions that may be incorrect. We need to remember that the point is not to draw attention to the person or their ability to "figure things out".
Even smart people who've written books on the subject could be mistaken. It seems to me that history is full of examples of people who were unable to precisely anticipate the fulfillment of prophecy.
Sometimes we need to revisit the text with fresh eyes.
For example, consider this one in the Book of Daniel:
The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom that will appear on the earth, different from all the other kingdoms, and it will devour the whole earth, trample it down, and crush it. And the ten horns are ten kings who will rise from this kingdom. After them another king, different from the earlier ones, will rise and subdue three kings.
Dan 7:23-24
When I've looked at this in the past, I've tended to focus on looking for the emergence of a final 10 kings that form into this final beast kingdom. It could be that. But consider the text.
This 4th beast is a 4th kingdom that "devours the whole earth". This could mean a large grouping of nations - much larger than 10.
And then the text says the ten horns are "ten kings who will rise from this kingdom".
Without being emphatic, to me this reads like this 10 is a subset of nations that emerges from a much larger group?
This subset of nations is then further reduced by three. The three that are removed are then replaced by one.
When I see stuff like this, it's also helpful to compare verses across multiple translations.
