Revelation 6 -- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

¹ Now I watched when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, “Come!” ² And I looked, and behold, a white horse! And its rider had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering, and to conquer.

³ When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” ⁴ And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.

⁵ When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” And I looked, and behold, a black horse! And its rider had a pair of scales in his hand. ⁶ And I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine!”

⁷ When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” ⁸ And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider's name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth. (Revelation 6:1-8, ESV)

We are in the second vision of Revelation. The first vision started in Revelation chapter 1 with the heavenly vision of Christ. After the vision of Christ the messages were delivered to the seven churches, which represent all the churches throughout the inter-advent age. The second vision began in Revelation chapter 4. John is taken to the great throne room of heaven with the four creatures and the twenty-four elders worshiping God. The one who sits on the throne holds a scroll sealed with seven seals. Christ is the only one worthy to take the scroll. He takes the scroll and breaks the seven seals of the scroll. The first four seals bring out four horsemen. This passage has been the subject of literature and art for centuries. At the upper left is Albrecht Durer’s The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. This is a woodcut image made by Durer around 1498. It is the most famous of his sixteen images he made of the Apocalypse.

There are four houses: A white horse, a red horse, a black horse, and a pale horse. Associated with the horses are conquering (white), war (red), famine (black), and death (pale). This passage alludes to several other scriptures. One is from Zechariah 6:1-8, another is Zechariah 1:8-15. In these passages, there are four groups of horses of different color that God sends to patrol the earth and punish the nations that are oppressing God’s people. God raises those nations to discipline his people, but when those nations inflict more punishment on Israel than they should have, God then punishes them because of his great love for Israel. The horses in Revelation and in Zechariah are very similar in color, with the most notable exception in the descriptions being that Zechariah has groups of horses (with Zechariah 6 having the horses pulling chariots), while Revelation has four individual horses, each with a different color.

This connection between Revelation 6:1-8 and Zechariah 1 and 6 seem to indicate God’s ongoing discipline of his people and simultaneous punishment of non-believers who persecute his people. Four judgments are also stated in Ezekiel 14:12-23. These judgments are caused by nations being unfaithful to God. The purpose of God’s retribution is to punish the nations for their sin but also to purify God’s remnant people by testing their faith. In Revelation we can see analogous application of judgments. Persevering believers will be purified. However, those who demonstrate their disloyalty to Christ by compromising with idolatry will be judged in these tribulations. Ezekiel also refers back to Leviticus 26:18-28. In Leviticus, God says he will bless Israel if it repents of idolatry. God issues warning judgments which will cause the true Israelites to repent and draw near to God, while the apostates will be punished and draw away from God.

God may have been drawing on John’s background in scripture and using these Old Testament passages as a backdrop to the four horsemen. The four horsemen of Revelation 6, as well as the rest of chapter 6, also have a strong allusion to the Olivet Discourse Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels (Mark 13:7-9, 24-25; Matthew 24:6-8; Luke 21:9-12, 25-26). The Olivet Discourse is where Jesus gave his discussion about the future. It was prompted by the disciples earlier when they were leaving the Temple commented how huge and impressive it was. Jesus took the disciples down the Kidron Valley and up on the Mount of Olives. There Jesus told them the temple would be destroyed, talked about various things that would happen throughout time prior to his coming again, and talked about the end of the age. As each horse is examined, along with the other seals, we’ll look at the discourse.

As Christ breaks each of the seals, one of the four living creatures thunders out, “Come!” The first horse is a white horse. This is an enigmatic symbol where respected scholars debate with vast disagreement. We’ll look at the other horses first, because the meaning of these is more obvious.

The second horse is red. The rider was granted to take peace away from the earth. He carries a great sword. Clearly this horse and rider bring war to the world. When we look at the Olivet Discourse, Christ says, “when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be frightened; those things must take place; but that is not yet the end.” From the discourse we see this is an activity that occurs throughout the age before Christ returns.

The third horse is black. The rider has a pair of scales. This horseman is indicative of famine. The scales were used to ration food during times of famine. A voice from the center of the four creatures speaks. The only one mentioned that sits in the center is God, and thus implies that God is even the ruler of famines. The voice says, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not harm the oil and the wine.” A denarius was a day’s wage for most people. A quart of wheat is not much for a family. While we use barely today in soups and in other things, barely was a much lower grade of grain, used chiefly to feed cattle. The prices for these items have been inflated from eight to sixteen times their normal price. Commentators speculate about the meaning of, “do not harm the oil and wine.” It is possible that not all items will be hit hard in a famine, that some things will be available. Others see this as luxury items and that the rich will find ways to enjoy their lives even during times of famine.

When we look at the Olivet Discourse, Christ says, “…there will be famines. These are but the beginning of the birth pains.” In other words, famines will reoccur throughout the inter-advent age.

The forth horse is pale. The Greek word is “chloros”. Our words “chlorine” “chloroform” come from this word. It is a pale yellow-green, sickly color. The riders are called “Death” and “Hades”. In Revelation chapter 1, we see that Christ has the keys to death and hades. They are given authority to kill a quarter of the people. It is not a full judgment, but a partial one. They inflict a four-fold pestilence on the earth. Four-fold pestilence is symbolic of a full judgment that is seen in the Old Testament – but is not complete given that it is a quarter of humanity affected. Again, from the Olivet Discourse, these judgments occur throughout the church age until the coming of Christ.

As I indicated, there is much debate about the first horse. Commentators, well-respected commentators will identify that horseman as Christ to anti-Christ! You can’t get further poles apart than that!

For those who think the first horseman is Christ, they see it is a white horse. White in the Bible is almost always good. Further, the rider is wearing a crown and Christ wears a crown. Finally the rider conquers; conquering in the Bible is usually a good thing, such as conquering evil. Those who think the rider is the anti-Christ see that Jesus forewarned about imposters coming with the appearance of the Messiah, “Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray.” (Mark 13:6, ESV). There is another view, that the rider is not Christ, but the rider is a good rider (because the symbolism of white and crown). Jesus says, “the gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations.” This rider is seen to represent the gospel going forth to all nations, conquering Satan. As the gospel goes forth, opposition to the gospel will arise in the form of the other horsemen. Personally, I see this last option, the gospel going forth conquering the nations, as the reality behind the symbolism of the white horse of the first seal.

Are these four seals and horsemen sequential occurrences in history? Reading the imagery in Zechariah, those horsemen are going about the earth concurrently. The Olivet Discourse also indicates these events occur concurrently. Each of these things will happen at various times at different places on the earth.

In the next post we’ll examine more of the seals of Revelation.