Sunday School Notes: Revelation 6:7-8

⁷ And when he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, “Come!” ⁸ And I saw, and behold a pale [green] horse, and the one sitting upon it, his name [was] Death, and Hades followed after him, and authority was given to them over a quarter of the earth to kill with the sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the beasts of the earth.

We briefly recapped the previous three seals for the benefit of newcomers, and then dived into the text. Again. I think we can assume there was thunder and the voice the of the creature coming from the throne area. In other words, as with the first three riders, the command to “Come!” is a command issued by the Lord Himself. We seem to be belaboring the point, but I think it’s worth belaboring: God is the one instigating these events. Christ, the Lamb, is the one opening the seals and hence initiating the judgments that follow. The riders are not operating on their own initiative; they are doing what the Lord sends them to do. This may lead us to suppose that God is leading these people to sin, since they are bringing about calamities upon all people, the godly and the godless, the just and the unjust. But God is good, holy, and righteous in all that He does. He is not coercing the riders to sin; they are more than willing to sin. The Lord simply commissions their sin and, to paraphrase Joseph in Genesis 50:20, what they intend for evil, God intends for good.

John describes the first horse as “pale,” or “ashen” in some translations. The Greek word is chlôros from which we get the word “chlorophyll,” the life-blood of plants that gives them their green coloring. “Pale” is a good translation, but I think the nuance of “pale green” may be better. What’s the significance of this? In popular culture, Death is seen as riding a black horse, but clearly, biblically, that’s not the case. But perhaps a pale color, especially pale green, evokes thoughts of death, sickness, and suffering. The drawn face, deprived of blood flow, has a pale complexion. We even speak of people being “green around the gills” when they are very sick.

The interesting thing about the fourth horse color is the fact that it is different from the color given to the horse in Zechariah 6:2-3, the passage that seems to be behind Revelation 6:1-8. There, the horses are red, white, black, and “dappled”–which isn’t really a color. Of further interest is the fact that Zechariah 1:8 mentions “red, sorrel, and white horses.” Some commentators on Zechariah think there may be a copying error, and that the original horse colors were red, sorrel (Hebrew sârôq, which might actually be yârôq, “green”), white, and black. These commentators appeal to Revelation 6 for support, bearing in mind that John’s knowledge of what Zechariah said might be better than ours because a) he would have known better quality copies of Zechariah, and b) under divine inspiration, he is giving the correct horse colors. However, even if our copy of Zechariah is flawless, the word “dappled” doesn’t really give us much in terms of color. It may imply a grey, ashen coloring, so “pale” would work for that. If we understand Revelation to be a further clarification of Zechariah, then we don’t need to jump to the conclusion that there is contradiction here. The fine tuning of “dappled/grey” to “pale” and even “pale green” is quite within the realms of possibility.

For the first time, John gives the rider’s name: Death. Not only is this the first rider with a name, but this rider is the first to be the direct cause of death. The first simply “conquers” with no mention of any murderous activity on his part. The second stirs up men to fight against one another, so no blood is directly on his hands. With the third rider, death and suffering come through poverty, not by direct action on the rider’s part. But here, the rider is given authority to kill by various means. We’ll look at those in a moment.

Trailing after Death is “Hades”–the abode of the dead in classical mythology, and often used in Scripture to speak of either “the grave” in general terms, or “hell,” the final abode of the godless. The Greek word used is hadês, which is often used in the LXX (Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament) to translate the Hebrew word sh^e‘ôl (Sheol). We see death and Sheol/Hades paired in a number of places in the Old Testament (e.g., Psalm 6:5; Psalm 18:5; Proverbs 5:5; Isaiah 28:15; Hosea 13:14). The Hosea reference is particularly interesting because in 13:8 there is mention of being “ripped apart by wild beasts” as a punishment for idolatry, and death by “wild beasts” is one of the ways “Death” kills. Of great significance, however, is the fact that in Revelation 1:18, Jesus describes himself as the one who holds the keys to death and Hades. He is Lord of their domain, and none enter except by his will. This reminds us that no-one will be killed by Death and Hades unless the Lord empowers them to kill, and he opens Death and Hades for that person to enter.

We took a moment to consider the meaning of the number four, especially since the fourth horseman is being given authority over one fourth of the earth to kill by any of four possible means (sword, famine, pestilence, and wild beasts). Along with the four creatures at the throne, we get the strong impression that the number four carries significance. It appears that, as the number seven speaks of completion, fullness, and totality on a spiritual and universal level, so four speaks of fullness or totality on an earthly level, just as we speak of four “corners” of the earth, four points of the compass, four seasons in a complete year, and so on. The four creatures represent the totality of creation; the four horsemen represent the fullness of calamity brought about upon the earth; the fourth of the earth that is given over to Death and Hades is not necessarily the whole earth (which would contradict it being a fourth), but rather a fourth part of all humanity scattered everywhere. Not a quarter of a piece of pie, but pieces from all over the pie that, if you gathered those pieces together, would make up a quarter.

In Ezekiel 14, the text that seems to be the precursor to the judgments in Revelation 6:8, warns of punishments for idolaters, in particular warning Jerusalem of the four judgments that may fall upon her: sword, famine, wild beasts, and pestilence. (The word used for pestilence (Hebrew deber) is translated thanatos in the LXX, which is the Greek word for “death.” This is the word used in Revelation 6:8 when John lists “pestilence” as a means of death.) This seems to indicate a complete range of ways to die. The four listed are not exhaustive, but are representative of the whole range of death experience. We find them grouped together not only in Ezekiel 14:21, but also in Ezekiel 33:27, and three of the four are mentioned in Ezekiel 5:12, Jeremiah 14:12, and Jeremiah 21:7).

Someone raised an interesting question: why are natural disasters not mentioned as a means of death or form of punishment? And it’s possible they are assumed (famine can, after all, come about by drought, not just by oppressive economic policy). Or it’s possible in the vision the Lord wanted to save the natural phenomenon for the sixth seal. Remember this is a vision, and we need to pay attention to the symbolism. The fact that John zeroes in on this range of judgments doesn’t mean others are excluded; the Lord through John is connecting the Old Testament revelation with the New. Throwing earthquakes, tornadoes, and tsunamis in with the sword, pestilence, famine, and wild beasts would, perhaps, have made the connection with the Old Testament less clear. The message in the symbols is that of the Lord bringing judgment upon the earth, and purification to His church.

We ran out of time so I hope next time to briefly review the Four Horsemen before moving on to the Fifth Seal.