Some passages of course will not allow us to be dogmatic, or they may allow for a double meaning in the passage. When one person, place, thing, or event in a passage is symbolic of another person, place, thing, or event; then the text may go back and forth between the two subjects will no clear line of division.

A good example is 2Sam 7:12-16, a clear double
meaning in prophecy.

This passages speaks of both Solomon according to 2Kgs 8:17-20, and also it speaks of Jesus according Heb 1:5. Parts of this passage apply only to Solomon, and parts apply only to Jesus, and much of the prophecy applies to both, but in different ways. Similarly, Matthew 24 talks about both the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and the end of the world, and Jesus goes back and forth talking about both subjects! See a fuller discussion of both subjects in Prophecy Principles.

Sometimes it is harder to be dogmatic.

So lets just take part of Psalm 21 as an exercise in interpretation. It is a short psalm of only 13 verses. According to the preamble it is by David and is about “The King” verse 1. I take it be about the Great King, Jesus the Christ. It talks about some who hate “the King.”

“Your hand will find out all of your enemies.
Your right hand will find out those who hate you.”
Psa 21:8 WEB

Let us note particularly “the earth” in verse 10.

“You will destroy their descendants from the earth,
Their posterity from among the children of men.”
Psa 21:10 WEB

It easily could be taken to be speaking of this present earth. Many nations have completely disappeared from this present earth, and I am not just talking about Sodom and Gomorrah. Thus it could be talking about those things where God raises up nations and then because of their sins, puts them down.

But look at the context.

The previous verse talks about how he will destroy their descendants

“You will make them as a fiery furnace in the time of your anger.
Yahweh will swallow them up in his wrath.
The fire shall devour them.”
Psa 21:9 WEB

What does that sound like? You might try to call this a great deal of hyperbole (as many liberals might), or it seems to describe final judgement when Jesus comes in flaming fire (2Thes 2:9-11)!

So what is the “earth” from which their
descendants are destroyed?

On a basis of what we have examined I think it would easy to make the case for their descendants never to live in “the new earth” to come. That would fit the context as we have examined it, especially if we apply this psalm to the Messiah, the Great King.

And some prophecies talk of good things yet
to come in this world,

and in the world to come. Misunderstandings here have caused some to take prophecies of heaven (“the new heavens and the new earth”), and apply them to this present earth, and so come up with a heaven on earth which will never be!

WEB is the World English Bible, a copyright free revision
of the original ASV American Standard Version 1901