As the first six seals on the Lamb’s scroll are opened, waves of calamities such as military invasion, civil war, famine, disease and death, and fearful cosmic disturbances assault the earth’s inhabitants as expressions of divine wrath, causing them to cower in desperate terror while faithful martyrs in heaven appeal for justice from God.
6:1
The Lamb who was slain, now exalted to God’s throne (3:21) initiates the implementation of God’s plan for human history by opening the seals. Christians can take comfort that the crucified and risen Lord “who loves us” (1:5) remains in control, no matter how dire the circumstances.
One of the four living creatures issues a command in a voice like thunder, as God himself sometimes speaks (Exod 19:19): “Come forward”. Each time one of the living creatures speaks, John, still in the heavenly throne room, sees a colored horse and rider ride forth with various frightening consequences on earth.
John’s visions of four differently colored horses, each with a rider, allude to two visions of horses of similar colors in the book of Zechariah (1:7–17; 6:1–8).
The historical context of Zechariah’s visions is that God’s people, having returned to Judah after the Babylonian exile, are suffering at the hands of pagan nations. In the first vision (1:7–17) the four riders report that they have patrolled the earth and found it at peace. But an angel intercedes on behalf of God’s people with the Lord, that he have mercy on Jerusalem. The Lord promises to disrupt the tranquility of the oppressing †nations and to restore his people (Zech 1:14–17).
In the second of Zechariah’s visions, God sends out four teams of diversely colored horses to bring his judgment on the nations that have oppressed his people (Zech 6:1–8). The chariots are identified as “the four winds,” and the angel who interceded for Jerusalem is comforted that Babylon, “the land of the north,” will be judged (Zech 6:8).
The implication of the four horses and riders in Revelation is that God is causing or allowing the world’s peace to be disrupted, as a step toward his ultimate plan of saving his people and restoring Jerusalem (Rev 21–22).
6:2
The first horse is white, the color Roman generals wore in triumphal processions as a sign of their victory. But this rider had a bow in his hand, a disturbing symbol, since the cavalry known and feared for its ability to shoot a bow from charging warhorses belonged to the Parthians, a warlike federation of tribes across the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire.
This rider wears a crown, signifying royal authority. The fact that this crown was given to him - a passive verb - indicates that God has permitted him this power. The rider’s goal is clearly military conquest - to further his victories.
The question remains whether this rider represents Christ or is the first among the four destructive forces. Some connect this verse with 19:11 - where the rider on a white horse is Christ. In this case, the rider would symbolise the victorious Word of God, who has already conquered by his sacrificial death, and continues to conquer by being active in the lives of Christians and drawing others to Him through the testimony of the Church.
However, most of the recent commentators think that the rider in 6:2 does not refer to Christ, but represents destructive forces coming from outside of the empire - like those of the Parthians.
6:3–4
The second horse is red, signaling bloodshed. This rider was permitted by God to take peace away from the earth. The consequence is that people slaughter one another in wars between nations, civil wars, or other forms of social unrest. To this end he is given a huge sword - a symbol of destruction on the earth as the effect of judgement from heaven.
Several civil wars wracked the Roman Empire during the first century, besides the ongoing threat of violence to its subject people posed by Roman power.
6:5–6
The third horse is black and the third rider holds something in his hand, a scale. A voice in the midst of the four living creatures - indicating divine authorization - explains its meaning: A ration of wheat costs a day’s pay, and three rations of barley cost a day’s pay - those are exorbitant prices for food items that in normal times would be easily affordable. Wars often bring impoverishment, food shortages, and famine.
The call not to “spoil the olive oil and the wine” (v. 6d) is debated. It is sometimes taken to represent economic oppression of the poor whose basic foods are rationed, while luxury foodstuffs for the wealthy are not restricted.
But in the Old Testament oil and wine were not regarded as luxuries but as basic supplies along with grains to provide for life (cf. Deut 7:13; 11:14; Neh 5:11; Joel 2:19), and this makes more sense here as well.
The earthly situation portrayed in these words is one of scarcity and desperation to find the basic necessities for life—for all groups of humanity.
6:7–8
The fourth horse is the worst and sums up the evils of the previous three (two?). It is pale green, suggesting decay, and its rider is named Death. John reports that Hades followed it.
In Greco-Roman thought, Hades was the shadowy place that the dead inhabit, comparable to Sheol in the Hebrew Bible.
Death and Hades are given authority to kill by sword and famine and by other common biblical means of divine judgment: plague and beasts of the earth (see Ezek 5:17; 14:21). Death kills and Hades swallows the corpses to its realm.
The horrible extent of Death’s power is now disclosed: a quarter of the earth.
Like other numbers in Revelation, this number should be taken figuratively rather than literally. A very substantial number of people die by these means, but those affected remain a minority of those who live on earth.
At first glance readers might interpret the calamities depicted in the vision of the four horsemen as four distinct events. However, the fact that the last calamity seems to sum up the negative results of the previous ones suggests that the four horsemen should be viewed together as forming a single picture of divine judgment.
These specific evils mentioned here — conquest, violence, economic problems that lead to food shortages, disease, and death — are for the most part disasters that result from sinful human actions rather than divine intervention.
The indication that power was “given” to these riders suggests that God has allowed the human will to follow its own desire for power, violence, and selfishness (e.g., Ps 81:11–17; Rom 1:24–32).
God allows the wicked to do what they please to reveal just how wicked they are so that the justice of their final condemnation is obvious.
God allows the suffering that evil produces to bring human beings to their senses - to repentance.
See also Matt 24:6–8; Mk 13:7–8; Luke 21:9–11.
6:9 - the fifth seal
John mentions for the first time “the altar”. Isaiah’s vision of God on his heavenly throne pictures the throne (Isa 6:1) with an altar (Isa 6:6). In Revelation, it is from this altar that the judgments fall on the earth (e.g., 8:5; 9:13; 14:18).
The significance of the souls of the martyrs being underneath the altar is that God accepts the offering of their lives as sacrifices at his heavenly altar.
A blood of living creature was identified with its “soul” or life (Lev 17:11). When animals were sacrificed, the victim’s blood was poured at the base of the altar or splashed on its sides to indicate that the life or “soul” of the animal was offered to God as a gift.
The understanding was that God would respond to an acceptable sacrifice by bestowing blessing - an answer to a prayer, forgiveness of sin, deliverance from enemies, or whatever the need might be.
John’s vision indicates that when, like the Lamb, Christians are killed for their testimony to God’s word, their blood is metaphorically poured at the base of the altar and flows beneath it - as a sacred offering of their lives to God.
6:10
The souls of the martyrs beneath the altar cried out in a loud voice for God to sit in judgment and avenge their blood. They ask that the evildoers who slaughtered them be brought to justice to receive their recompense. Those souls were violently killed due to their Christian witness.
These words recall God’s words to Cain—“Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground!” (Gen 4:10; see Heb 12:24)—and the biblical teaching that God requires justice for the blood of murdered victims.
Their cry, “How long . . . ?”, echoes the cry of the psalmists and prophets suffering affliction as they wait for God’s justice (Ps 6:4; 13:2–3; 35:17; Habakuk 1:2).
They address their cry to Christ or God, referring to him as master, a term for someone with absolute authority, who is holy and true—that is, faithful.
Those held responsible for the murder of God’s servants are the inhabitants of the earth, a phrase John uses to refer to people who do not belong to God.
Should this vision be understood literally to mean that the martyrs in heaven are praying for the punishment of their persecutors?
On the one hand, there is nothing wrong with praying for justice, which in the Old Testament often includes judgment against those who refuse to repent of murder and other crimes.
But such prayer does not correspond to Jesus’ teaching about love of enemies (Luke 6:27–29, 35–36) or to his own prayer from the cross nor to the similar prayer of the first martyr, Stephen (see Luke 23:34; Acts 7:60).
So, how to understand it? How do we understand “vengeance”?
Most, if not all, cultures share the view that wrongs ought to be righted, that the scales of justice demand to be balanced by the punishment of wrongdoers and the rewarding of the just.
“Vengeance” in the biblical sense is punishment that accords with justice, but it differs from “revenge”. The Bible evaluates vengeance differently depending on who does it.
God exercises judgment by right, but human avengers are often criticized. Lamech, the first human vengeance-taker, is portrayed negatively as an example of excessive and unjust vengeance (Gen 4:23–24). Vengeance-takers are among the enemies of God (Ps 8:3) and of the righteous (44:17).
The reason for this discrepancy is that God has the authority to execute judgment and does so justly. Human vengeance-takers are prone to unjust and excessive retribution and to vindictiveness. God’s disposition is different: he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, desiring the salvation of all (Ezek 18:32; 1 Tim 2:3–4).
According to Scripture, God is the one who avenges wrongs, and the Psalms often cry out to God to do just that (see Ps 94:1–2, 5–6, 8–10, 14–15, 20, 23).
Scripture associates vengeance with the day of divine judgment at the end of history. Even though the word “avenge” appears only twice in Revelation (6:10 and 19:2), the punishment of the wicked and God’s salvation of his people form a major theme of the book of Revelation.
6:11 - Mk 13:32; Acts 1:7; 1 These 5:1–2; Mt 24:14; 2 Pet 3:9.
God responds to the martyrs in a manner that at first seems curious. Each was given a white robe.
The Greek word for “robe,” indicates a long garment worn by a person of rank. In the Septuagint it is often used to describe the apparel of priests and occasionally of angels (Ezek 10:2, 6, 7). The white color connotes victory or holiness.
Each martyr was told to be patient—the Greek actually says “to wait,” “rest” (see 14:13), or “be refreshed”—a little while longer.
They are to wait until the number of their fellow martyrs is filled. This is a biblical way of saying that the answer to their prayer for justice awaits the completion of God’s plan, which foresees the martyrdom of other fellow Christians like themselves.
In other words, the martyrs will be vindicated, the scales of justice will be balanced, but not until history reaches its goal.
For the Church, the present is a time of testimony and of enduring suffering. The martyrs walk in the steps of the Lamb. God will do justice on behalf of the martyrs at the time he intends. Meanwhile, God honors and refreshes them in his presence.
6:12–14
The opening of the sixth seal brings about a vision of the time immediately before history’s end - referred to as the arrival of “the great day of . . . wrath” - indicating God’s response to the injustice shown the martyrs.
An earthquake signals God’s powerful intervention. God’s awesome shaking of creation is cited often in the Old Testament as a warning of similar judgment to come (Is 13:13; Jer 10:10; Ezek 38:19).
Such quaking is likewise a feature of God’s wrath poured out on the earth in the day of the Lord (Joel 3:14–16; Nah 1:5–6; Zech 14:4–5, 8–10) and is included in Jesus’s predictions of the messianic woes that precede his coming (Matt 24:7; Mark 13:8; Luke 21:11).
The darkening of the sun . . . as black as dark sackcloth recalls the plague of darkness against Egypt (Exod 10:21–22), also prophesied against Babylon in Is 13:10–11. The prophet Joel foretold this darkness and the whole moon becoming like blood at the day of the Lord (Joel 3:4). Other texts speak of stars being darkened (Isa 13:10; Ezek 32:7; Joel 2:10).
The sky being rolled up recalls Is 34:4.
John’s first readers would have understood these events as the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy of the heavenly signs that will immediately precede the coming of the Son of Man (Matt 24:29–30; Mk 13:24–26).
These severe disruptions point forward to the dissolution of the present sky and earth in connection with the arrival of the new creation of Revelation 21–22 (cf. 20:11, sky and earth “fled”; 21:1, first sky and first earth “passed away”; 21:23; 22:5, no need of sun or moon).
6:15–17 - instead of repenting, they hide - like Adam.
In the previous vision the souls of the martyrs cried out to God for justice (6:10). Here, when justice is about to be executed, seven classes of people, representing the totality of human beings estranged from God, cried out to the mountains and the rocks (Is 2:10–21; Matt 24:16; Mk 13:14; Luke 21:21).
In extreme distress they hide in caves and among the mountain crags, begging the mountains to fall on them and hide them from God’s face, now revealed in judgment, and from the wrath of the Lamb (4:2–3; 5:5–7). The one who suffered as a Lamb for the sin of the world now comes as the judge of all.
The people who face judgment because they have not repented are not restricted to the wealthy or to those who wield power. Judgment falls on every class of evildoers, without partiality (Lev 19:15; Job 34:17–19; see also Isa 24:1–4, 21; 34:12).
The appeal of the unrepentant to the mountains to hide them (also mentioned by Jesus in Luke 23:30) echoes Hosea 10:8, which foretells divine judgment on Israel’s idolatrous altars. The statement that the great day of their wrath has come indicates the arrival of the “day of the LORD” (Isa 13:9; Joel 2:1), the final judgment.
The fulfillment of the Old Testament promises of the coming of the Messiah to reign and judge occurs in two phases. Christ’s first coming as the Suffering Servant and Lamb of God brought the good news of grace and an offer of salvation to the human race. The Messiah’s second coming will be marked by salvation for his faithful followers and judgment for those who stubbornly refuse to repent in spite of the warnings and witnesses Christ has sent them.
The question, “who can stand?”, echoes the Old Testament passages that speak of God’s irresistible judgment (Ps 76:8; Nah 1:6; Mal 3:2).
Comment # 1
If the interpretation given here of the visions that accompany the opening of the first six seals is correct, it sheds light on the interpretation of Revelation as a whole.
It shows that the visions of this book do not provide us with a simple preview of events arranged in chronological order. Rather, these visionary vignettes portray facts about the troubles of the time in which we live (the first four seals), about the seemingly unrequited evil that Christ’s faithful witnesses endure in the present (the fifth seal), and about impending judgment (the sixth seal).
Comment # 2
When the Bible refers to God’s wrath or fury it speaks metaphorically, ascribing human emotions to God in order to help human beings grasp that those who refuse to repent have reason to be afraid.
God’s wrath differs from human anger in that it is an expression of perfect justice and the radical incompatibility between his holiness and evil of every kind.
When Scripture speaks of God manifesting his wrath it refers to his acting to render just judgment.