Painting #8 White Horse (1st Seal) - Revelation 6:2

The Opening of the Seals

     The time of singing has finally ceased, for the hour of judgment has come. The Lamb, whose right it is, has received the earth’s title deed and now must begin to take possession of His kingdom. The scroll whose writing is within had been rolled and sealed with seven seals. Before the great claim can be verified officially, the seals must be broken and the writing openly displayed. By the same token, the invaders of earth and their human lackeys must be expelled before the Lamb’s divine ownership will ever be openly recognized. Thus, the opening of the seals coincides with the judgments on the earth. As each successive seal is broken, the wrath of God takes successive toll on the earth and its inhabitants.

     Thus begins a seven-year period of the most severe troubles the world will ever know. This is “the day of the Lord,” the time when God breaks His agelong silence and speaks from heaven in mighty power. The great judgments of this period are described in words of fire by the prophets of the Old Testament, especially Isaiah and Daniel. It requires the Book of Revelation, however, to provide a basic topical and chronological framework which enables us to sort them all out and put them in right perspective.

     This seven-year period (see Chapter 1) is clearly also the same as Daniel’s famous “seventieth week” (Daniel 9:24-27). With respect to the unbelieving nation of Israel, it is to be “the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jeremiah 30:7). For the unbelieving Gentiles, it is the time of “the indignation of the Lord upon all nations” (Isaiah 34:2).

     The scene as described in Revelation 6 is from the perspective of heaven, where John is waiting with the assembled saints. The events taking place on earth are given in further detail from earth’s perspective in the parenthetical chapters (7, 10, 11, 13). In heaven, the symbolism of four great horses and their fearsome riders is employed; on earth, the terrible judgments which they unleash are very literal and real.

Revelation 6:1.     And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.

     The Lamb had received the title scroll from the right hand of Him on the throne, a ceremony which had precipitated the magnificent cosmic anthem of praise to the Redeemer. Now that the anthem is finished, the Lamb proceeds to open the seals. The noise of thunder, as though presaging the tremendous storms about to break on the earth, emanates from the throne, from one of the four cherubim, and then the mighty cherub speaks.

     The voice thundered: “Come!” In the King James Version, the rendering is “Come and see” and, in view of the large number of manuscripts which support this reading, this may well be the correct one. It should also be acknowledged that “Come!” could just as well be translated “Go!” In any case, the one who is speaking, that is, the “living one,” the cherub, is calling and sending the first mighty messenger of judgment.    

The Invasion of Israel

     On the earth, in the meantime, momentous events have been taking place which, to many of the men and women still on the earth, will be highly encouraging and optimistic. After decades of war and inflation, political tensions of unrelieved complexity, and a whole host of global ills, almost overnight it seems most of the world’s major problems have been resolved.

     The baleful threat of Russia and her program of global conquest have been removed by a complex of amazing natural catastrophes which have decimated her military machine. The story had been recorded prophetically long ago, in Ezekiel 38 and 39, and had finally come to pass. In order to understand the events that follow in Revelation 6, it is necessary to digress at this point to give a brief summary of these two remarkable chapters.

     Ezekiel 38 foresees a sudden invasion of the land of Israel in “the latter days” (Ezekiel 38:8, 16), at a time when Israel has returned to her own land out of the nations and apparently dwelling safely there. The threats from her immediate Arab neighbors had been neutralized in some way (possibly through nonaggression pacts with Egypt, Arabia, and others, or possibly by the development of new weapons systems which made invasion by the usual methods impracticable).

     The Russian bear far to the north, however, was still Israel’s implacable enemy, and had been gradually extending its power through a ring of puppet nations surrounding Israel. These are enumerated in Ezekiel 38:2-6.  The prophecy is a follows:

     “Son of man, set thy face against Gog, and land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, and say, Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armor, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords: Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet: Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee.”

     Gog is evidently the name of the commander of these armies, and he hails from the region originally settled by Japheth’s son, Magog. This name is probably equivalent to modern “Georgia” and Gog’s name thus may refer to his homeland. Stalin, for example, was from the Soviet republic of Georgia (the prefix “ma” means “land of,” and “Georgia” may be read “Gog-ia”), and his first successor was named “Georgi” (Malenkov). In fact, Gog could well be a general title, like Pharaoh, derived from the ancestral home of the vast northern nations. Meshech and Tubal were also sons of Japheth, and both ancient and modern ethnologists have recognized their names to have been preserved in the modern names Moscow(or Muscovy) and Tobolsk, the chief cities of western and eastern Russia, respectively. Finally, many scholars have stressed that “chief prince” is actually “prince of Rosh,” and that Russia actually derives its modern name from this very verse. Thus, there is little doubt that the leader of this latterday anti-Israeli alliance will be Russia.

     The other nations form a clockwise ring around Israel and the entire Middle East. Persia is, of course, modern Iran. Ethiopia includes the modern land known as Ethiopia, but may also include a part of the Arabian peninsula across the Red Sea, where the ancestral Ethiopians first settled. Libya, of course, still has the same name today. Gomer, another son of Japheth, gave his name to the Cimmerians, the Crimea, and Germani. Thus, the reference to “Gomer and all his bands” may refer to all the peoples that settled from the Black Sea to eastern Germany. Similarly, “Togarmah of the North quarters and all his bands” probably refers to Armenia and Turkestan in general. It is significant that many of these nations today are Moslem nations and all of them are under Russian domination, even though nominally independent. All of them are strongly anti-Israel.

     The sudden invasion of Israel will be resisted verbally, though not militarily, by “Sheba and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, and the young lions thereof” (Ezekiel 38:13). Sheba and Dedan were in Arabia, and this passage suggests that the wealthy Arab oil states, themselves the objects of Russian cupidity, may still at that time be outside Russian control. Tarshish is probably the same as Carthage, founded by the Phoenicians. “Tarshish” means “smeltry,” and the ancient Phoenicians, the first great mariners, founded iron smeltries, mines, and settlements in many lands, including at least Spain and England, and quite possibly even in America. Thus “the merchants of Tarshish and their young lions,” in modern equivalence, most likely are the western nations in general. The original Phoenicia is modern Lebanon, and this nation also will probably be aligned with Israel.

     The attackers will be “like a cloud to cover the land” (38:9) coming from all directions, possibly great waves of paratroopers, as well as cavalry. Their weapons will be mostly of wood – probably one of the new forms of very light, but very strong wood (39:9), like lignostone. Perhaps Israel’s advanced weapons technology will have developed laser or microwave beams which render metallic components inoperable. The overwhelming numerical strength of the invading hosts, a number sufficient to require seven months of work by the whole population just to bury (39:12, 13), would seem to be irresistible.

     But then God will intervene in an unprecedented way! A tremendous complex of earthquakes, hailstorms, volcanic eruptions, and pestilence, supplemented by fighting among the invading armies themselves, will overwhelm the hosts of Gog, destroying five men out of every six (38:19-22; 39:2-4). Simultaneously, great fires devastate Russia itself, along with the coastlands of it confederates (39:6), so that it will be completely eliminated as a world power as will its various satellite nations.

     The “coincidences” will be so remarkable (even though the catastrophes are all natural phenomena) that all the nations will know they were sent by God (38:23). Israel, in particular, will give up the atheism which has dominated the Zionist movement and the modern Israeli nation in general and will “know that I am the Lord their God from that day and forward” (39:22).

     It is quite probable that this great event will give Israel both the desire and the opportunity finally to rebuild their ancient temple and reinstitute the ancient worship. The Moslem “Dome of the Rock” will be razed and a magnificent temple constructed (Revelation 11:1, 2). With all this, however, the Israeli people will still reject Christ (except for a remnant that will be especially prepared by God), even though they are seeking to restore the worship of the God of their fathers.

     The other nations of the world will also quickly seek to take advantage of the vacuum left by Russia’s fall. Quickly forgetting the obvious role of God in the affair, the nations of the western alliance – possibly the NATO nations and/or the nations of the European Common Market – will forge a vast politico/commercial/religious alliance designed to dominate world affairs. Ten of these nations – all with cultural and legal ties to ancient Rome(Daniel 2:40-43; 7:24; Revelation 17:12) – will unite together, first in a loose alliance, later in a united empire.

     With Russia and the Moslem nations no longer a problem, and the oil resources of the Middle East under their jurisdiction, these western nations will anticipate a tremendous era of peace and prosperity. In one of these nations, a tremendously capable and charismatic leader will have come into power (Daniel 7:23-25), and he and his nation will quickly enter into a treaty with Israel, which had so recently been in mortal danger. The Scriptures do not indicate the terms of the covenant except that it is for a seven-year period and possibly guarantees the safe construction of the temple and establishment of its worship (Daniel 9:27).

     At some point in this sequence of events, the Lord will descend from heaven to the earth’s atmosphere, and the great resurrection of the Christian dead and rapture of the living believers will take place. It is impossible to say with certainty, however, whether it will take place before or after the Russian invasion, since the rapture is always imminent. Since the seven-year period of the treaty almost certainly corresponds to the seven years covered in Revelation 6-19, the rapture must take place no later than the date of its activation, but it may occur anytime before that. It is possibly also significant that the wooden weapons of Gog’s devastated armies will serve as fuel for the Israeli people for a period of seven years (Ezekiel 39:9, 10).

     In any case, when the rapture does occur, there will undoubtedly be a great flurry of excitement in the world, particularly in those nations where there are many Christians whose sudden disappearance will be newsworthy. Probably there will be enough people left with adequate knowledge of biblical eschatology to deduce what has happened, and many and heated will be the letters to the editor. Liberal pastors will preach sermons to their liberal congregations deploring the rapture theory and trying to explain all the disappearances as some sort of capitalist plot. Many others will claim that aliens from outer space have spirited them away in their spaceships. With all the other excitement in the world, the missing Christians will soon be forgotten, at least for a time, and the world will get caught up in the euphoria of anticipated prosperity and peace.

     All of this will be the immediate background of the events in Revelation 6. On the earth will be the vivid memory of Russia’s recent destruction. The focus of interest will be increasingly on Israel and the Middle East, and the vanished Christians will soon be forgotten.

     The rapture will have had one other major effect on the world. No longer will there be any significant voice for morality and righteousness in the world, and the pursuit of pleasures and vices of every description will be unrestrained (2 Thessalonians 2:6-12).

     But then the blow will fall. “For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape” (1 Thessalonians 5:3).

Revelation 6:2.     And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.

     This is the first of the famous “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” These horses, of course, are clearly symbolic. There are no horses in heaven. Further, the first is quite different from the others as no specific plagues are associated with its rider, as are the others (war, famine, and pestilence, respectively).

     For some reason, most futurist commentators take the rider on the white horse to be the coming Antichrist. This interpretation, however, fails to recognize that all four horsemen are sent forth directly from the Lamb, as judgments on the wicked men on the earth, of whom the most wicked is Antichrist himself. Furthermore, although this great “man of sin” does indeed attempt to conquer, he certainly is not to be allowed to conquer. He will quickly be conquered himself – by none other than this same rider on the white horse (see Revelation 19:11-20), who Himself is none other than King of kings and Lord of lords. 

     At this tremendous moment in history, “the Son of God goes forth to war,” as the Lamb breaks the first seal. The seven seal judgments follow, then the seven trumpets, then the seven bowls. However, the seventh seal includes all the seven trumpets and the seventh trumpet leads into the seven bowls. The entire series thus represents the Lamb’s successive forays into the invader’s strongholds until finally the enemy is driven out completely. The climax comes at the battle of Armageddon, when the great Rider appears once again on His white horse to win the final victory (Revelation 19:11, 19).

     This horseman is the only one with a crown, and it is the victor’s crown (Greek stephanos) He is “to conquer”; He is the King. He is armed with a great bow, but the bow does not speak of warfare; for that is the province of the second horseman. The word “conquer” is the same as “overcome” used so frequently by the Lord in the letters to the churches. To the last church, the promise to the “conquering” Christian was that he would share His throne, since He also had “conquered” (Revelation 3:21).

     There may be a suggestion in Habakkuk 3:9. “Thy bow was made quite naked, . . . even thy word. Selah.” Like the sword “which proceeded out of his mouth “ (Revelation 19:21), the bow perhaps speaks of His conquering the hearts of men through His Word, while at the same time He is defeating the rebellions of wicked men by the same Word. In any case, “when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness” (Isaiah 26:9). As the seals are broken, the trumpets blown, and the bowls poured out, the wicked are indeed defeated but at the same time a great multitude will be won to Christ (Revelation 7:9). The bow, like the rainbow, speaks of mercy in the midst of judgment. The judgments are both preceded and followed, begun and ended, by the one who “is called The Word of God” (Revelation 19:13).   

War and Famine

Revelation 6:3.     And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.

     As the white horse receded from John’s field of vision, riding forth to conquer the world with His great bow, John looked again at the Lamb in the midst of the heavenly throne. The rider on the white horse had been a vision, representing the Lamb’s control of the judgments that were about to break forth on the earth. Indeed, this first horseman and the Lamb both represented none other than John’s beloved Lord, the one who as Lamb of God took away the sin of the world (John 1:29) and who as the great Rider on the white horse was now riding forth to purge away the sinners of the world.

     And then, when the Lamb broke the second seal on the title deed to the world, the second great cherub – the one appearing first to John like a calf, or an ox – spoke with a voice like thunder, and the second horseman prepared to ride.

Revelation 6:4.     And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.

     There had been a time of peace on the earth, but it was brief and illusory. The second rider, this one on the blood-red horse, was commissioned by the Lamb to take away their peace. “Wars and rumors of wars” (Matthew 24:6) again broke out, as nation rose against nation and men again undertook to “kill one another.”

     It is an amazing thing that men, created in the image of God, should become so blinded with hate or lust or ambition or envy that they should seek to destroy the precious lives of others. Yet the very first man born in the world slew his brother, and men have followed in the way of Cain ever since. Not only the barbarians of Genghis Khan, but the sophisticated butchers of Nazi Germany and Red China and Stalinist Russia in the enlightened twentieth century have murdered millions. The genocides in Cambodia and Viet Nam and in various African nations continued the same pattern.

     Men have longed for peace. There have been peace treaties, disarmament conferences, leagues of nations, peace prizes, demonstrations for peace – all seeking somehow to bring in lasting world peace. But all had failed.

     Then, with the sudden disintegration of Russia and its Moslem allies, there had been a tremendous surge of optimism and the world anticipated a long period of peace and prosperity. The troublesome Christians had also disappeared, and there was nothing to restrain full enjoyment of all the pleasures and indulgences of the sinful hearts of mankind.

     But it could not last. In spite of themselves, men soon were fighting each other again. This was true not only in terms of actual wars between countries. Racial strife increased, as did labor troubles. Civil wars erupted within nations, and organized crime was rampant. Individual feuds generated waves of murders, and soon a state almost of anarchy prevailed. Police forces and armies were of little avail as they also were engaged in strife internal and external. Nothing seemed to help and men began to fight almost in spite of themselves. God had sent “strong delusion” (2 Thessalonians 2:11) and the Red Horseman had taken peace from the earth, his great sword, invisibly but lethally, plunging into its heart.

Revelation 6:5.     And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.

     The first horseman carried a great bow, the second a great sword. The third held merely a pair of balances, but this also symbolized a great weapon. The balances depict trade and commerce, the determination of price equivalents for goods. The power of commerce, to generate prosperity or calamity, inflation or depression, opulence or starvation, has been understood and manipulated by politicians and merchants and bankers for thousands of years, beginning back in ancient Babylon. The Sumerian tablets, probably the oldest of all known archaeological artifacts, reveal mercantile and commercial practices quite similar to those of today.

     There is a remarkable prophecy in Zechariah apparently dealing with this same theme. In his vision, Zechariah saw an “ephah” going forth through all the earth, finally being carried to “the land of Shinar” (Zechariah 5:5-11). The ephah was the standard measure for wheat and other commodities, roughly equivalent to a bushel. An actual balance had been outfitted, with a container designed to hold an ephah attached to the balance. Zechariah saw a woman sitting in the ephah, however, with a talent of lead (that is, a circular lead weight) covering the mouth. One woman was in the ephah, with two winged women bearing it back to Sumer(same as “Shinar”) where the whole system of worldly wealth and commerce was first developed and whence it had spread throughout the earth. “This is wickedness,” and the angel (Zechariah 5:8), and it was being transported back to Babylon “to build it an house in the land of Shinar: and it shall be established, and set there upon her own base” (Zechariah 5:11). The great Babylonian harlot is seen again in Revelation 17 and 18, where apparently this system of wickedness has indeed been set again upon its original base, where she will once again control and manipulate world wealth and commerce.

     Babylon is now largely in ruins, but it is quite near to Baghdad, the capital of Iraq. Iraqis today the center of tremendous oil reserves and has profited even more than Iran and Saudi Arabia from her great underground wealth. For years water control projects have been harnessing the waters of the great Tigris and Euphrates Rivers flowing through Iraq, and from time to time there has been talk of someday building a new Babylon.

     Babylon would be ideally situated to serve as a world trade and communications center and indeed even as a world capital. An Institute for Creation Research computer study some years ago demonstrated that this region is very close to the geographical center of all the world’s land areas. In view of the clear indication that Babylon may indeed be the actual capital of the world empire of the Beast in the last days (see comments on Revelation 17 and 18), it may well be that the decision to rebuild Babylon (first as a trade center, later to become the capital) could be made at about the same time the decision is made to rebuild Jerusalem’s temple. By that time, the economic influence of the American nations (already much in decline) may be much less significant than during the past century. With the defeat of Russia and the increasing importance of the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, it may well be that the world’s industrial leaders and international bankers will decide that an internationalized capital of commerce should be established in an ultra-modern new metropolis arising out of the ruins of earth’s first metropolis. Possibly even the United Nations Organization will decide to move from the so-called “Babylon-on-the-Hudson” to the primal Babylon on the Euphrates.

     Wherever they are centered, these international capitalists will begin to use the new period of peace as an opportunity to gain full control of the great oil resources of the world as well as its food resources and its money supply. The Black Horseman, however, will thwart their plans in considerable measure, as a worldwide famine suddenly strikes the world.

     This is the period during which God’s two Witnesses call for a worldwide three and a half-year drought (see comments on Revelation 11:3-6). Tremendous famines, then shortages and hunger, quickly follow.

Revelation 6:6.     And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.

     This is an amazing revelation. The voice speaking out of the midst of the four living ones can hardly be other than God Himself, specifying commodity prices. Evidently the voice is directed to the Black Horseman, and perhaps also the various angels who control the winds and rains and other natural agents influencing agricultural growth, to instruct them as to precisely how severe the famine is to become.

     The “measure” is the Greek koinex, about 1 ½ pints, and the “penny” is the denarius, a coin which was a day’s wage of a laborer. This price represents severe conditions of shortage, conditions which will allow wage earners barely to survive. If they are unemployed, or if they have a family, some probably will not survive, without using their savings or being fed by government dole.

     The instruction not to hurt the oil and wine is grimly sarcastic. Oil and wine represent luxuries rather than necessities such as wheat and barley. Normally these are expensive, mostly indulgences of the rich. They will at that time be available in ample supply despite the shortages of basic foodstuffs. The demand for luxuries normally drops in times of inflated prices for necessities.

     It is barely possible that the “oil,” instead of referring to olive oil, as it normally does, could refer to petroleum, which was unknown in New Testament days but is extremely important to the modern world. It could be still more important to the future world empire of the coming Antichrist. Wine has been the world’s great intoxicating beverage for thousands of years, although it may in this context represent all intoxicating beverages. Thus, it may be that God’s instruction here is to preserve the world’s fuels and intoxicants. This would allow men to indulge their sinful appetites to the fullest, even while suffering from shortages of necessary food, to demonstrate the justice of their coming condemnation.

     In either case, the overriding characteristic of the world after the third seal is broken is one of violence and near anarchy, along with severe famine and food shortage.