What Does the Bible Say About the Antichrist? The second carries a sword and rides a red horse and is the creator of War. White, red, black, and pale green horses—what do these stand for? [4] "They were given authority over a quarter of the earth, to kill with sword, famine, and plague, and by means of the beasts of the earth.
‘FOUR’ revolves around how Death, War, Pestilence and Famine would exist in today’s world. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth. The 'Four Horsemen' represent the planets Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The appearance of the Lion in Revelation 5 shows the triumphant arrival of Jesus in Heaven, and the first Horseman could represent the sending of the Holy Spirit by Jesus and the advance of the gospel of Jesus Christ.[10]. Talent and art had become extinct in proportion to the desolation of the world. This suggests that the black horse's famine is to drive up the price of grain but leave oil and wine supplies unaffected (though out of reach of the ordinary worker). This article is about the concept in the Christian Bible.
Irenaeus, an influential Christian theologian of the 2nd century, was among the first to interpret this Horseman as Christ himself, his white horse representing the successful spread of the gospel.
[27] In the passage, it is read that the indicated price of grain is about ten times normal (thus the famine interpretation popularity), with an entire day's wages (a denarius) buying enough wheat for only one person (one choenix, about 1.1 litres), or enough of the less nutritious barley for three, so that workers would struggle to feed their families. the NIV) or "pestilence" (e.g. [3][9] The color white also tends to represent righteousness in the Bible, and Christ is in other instances portrayed as a conqueror. That furious plague (the Plague of Cyprian), which raged from the year 250 to the year 265, continued without interruption in every province, city and almost every family in the empire. Those who trust in Jesus Christ as Savior have nothing to fear. During a portion of this time, 5000 people died daily in Rome; and many towns that escaped the attacks of barbarians were entirely depopulated.
", The third Horseman rides a black horse and is popularly understood to be Famine as the Horseman carries a pair of balances or weighing scales (Greek ζυγὸν, zygon), indicating the way that bread would have been weighed during a famine.
The apocalyptic figure indicated by the great sword indicated an undue authority and unnatural use of it. The balance in the rider's hand is not associated with a man's weighing out bits of bread in scanty measure for his family's eating but in association with the buying and selling of corn and other grains. For the next 80 or 90 years succeeding the banishment of the apostle John to Patmos covering the successive reigns of the emperors Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian and the two Antonines (Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius), a golden age of prosperity, union, civil liberty and good government unstained with civil blood unfolded. The fourth seal prophecy seems to mark the malignant climax of the evils of the two preceding seals to which no such limitation is attached. [1], This fourth, pale horse, was the personification of Death with Hades following him jaws open receiving the victims slain by Death. [16]:131–133, In some commentaries to Bibles, the white Horseman is said to symbolize (ordinary) War, which may possibly be exercised on righteous grounds in decent manner, hence the white color, but still is devastating. Then I saw when the Lamb broke one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying as with a voice of thunder, "Come." [16]:150–152, When He broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, "Come." It appears at least as early as 1906, when it is mentioned in the Jewish Encyclopedia. Regardless of which version comes to pass, Jesus himself said two things are certain. [24] In this school of thought, Conquest, the white horse's rider, is sometimes identified as a symbol of Parthian forces: Conquest carries a bow, and the Parthian Empire was at that time known for its mounted warriors and their skill with bow and arrow. [1][6] That the number of horsemen is four is important: four is the number associated with creation (e.g., the four living creatures) or the earth (e.g., the four winds) in the Book of Revelation. Roman war progressed triumphantly into the invader's own territory, and the Parthian war was successfully ended by the total overthrow of those people. [3][24] Other commentators have suggested that it might also represent the persecution of Christians. Key Differences Between the Rapture and the Second Coming, Introduction to the Book of Zechariah: The Messiah Is Coming. The Lamb of God/Lion of Judah opens the first four of the seven seals, which summons four beings that ride out on white, red, black, and pale horses.
But in Revelation 6, John, who is still in heaven, begins to see what will happen on earth at the end of times when God judges the inhabitants of the world. Despite the dire consequences of the events symbolized by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, one truth stands clear: their power to destroy is limited. [18] This particular interpretation is common in popular culture references to the Four Horsemen. With this perspective the horsemen represent the rise of false religions, false prophets and false messiahs; the increase of wars and rumours of wars; the escalation of natural disasters and famines; and the growth of persecution, martyrdom, betrayal and loss of faith. [23] (See for example the historical and modern images, as well as the coat of arms, of Joan of Arc. ", "The riders on the chloros and the blood red apocalypse horses", Doctrine and Covenants, Section 77, verses 6 and 7, "Zechariah 1:8–17 NIV – During the night I had a vision, and", "Zechariah 6:1–8 NIV – Four Chariots – I looked up again, and", Safety of high-energy particle collision experiments, Existential risk from artificial intelligence, Self-Indication Assumption Doomsday argument rebuttal, Self-referencing doomsday argument rebuttal, List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events, List of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Four_Horsemen_of_the_Apocalypse&oldid=984576540, Articles with incomplete citations from December 2015, Wikipedia articles with style issues from July 2016, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2016, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 20 October 2020, at 21:13. [16]:203 After the plague had abated, the empire suffered from general distress, and its condition was very much like that which followed after the Black Death of the Middle Ages. Famine's mission to make wheat and barley scarce but "hurt not the oil and the wine" could be an allusion to this episode. [3] The sword held upward by the second Horseman may represent war or a declaration of war, as seen in heraldry. This rider symbolizes the massive and widespread loss of life. Based on the above passage, a common translation into English is the rider of the White Horse (sometimes referred to as the White Rider). They are described as patrolling the earth, and keeping it peaceful. The Cretans were renowned for their archery skills. the RSV) in connection with the riders in the passage following the introduction of the fourth rider; cf. 2, p. 129. [16]:191–192, Edward Gibbon speaks of a period from the celebration of the great secular games by the Emperor Philip to the death of Gallienus (in 268 AD[40]) as the 20 years of shame and misfortune, of confusion and calamity, as a time when the ruined empire approached the last and fatal moment of its dissolution.
[42], Before the Reformation and the woodcut by Albrecht Dürer, the usual and more influential commentaries of the Book of Revelation thought there was only one horseman riding successively these four horses, who was the Christ himself. Ezekiel lists them as "sword, famine, wild beasts, and plague. [26]:246 While the Goths had been destroyed for almost a century and the Empire reunited, the Sassanid Persians were uncowed in the East and during the following year hosts of central Asian Alani spread themselves over Pontus, Cappadocia, Cilicia and Galatia, etching their course by the flames of cities and villages they pillaged. The second horseman is described in Revelation 6:4: The second rider appears on a fiery red horse, with power to take away peace from the earth and make humans slay one another. The four riders represent conquest, the violence of warfare, famine, and widespread death.
In Revelation each of the living creatures summons a horseman, where in Ezekiel the living creatures follow wherever the spirit leads, without turning.
[2] The third is a food merchant riding upon a black horse, symbolizing Famine. I feel there are some that have been left out.
The deadly pale and livid appearance displays a hue symptomatic of approaching empire dissolution. [1], The Book of Zechariah twice mentions colored horses; in the first passage there are three colors (red, speckled/brown, and white),[53] and in the second there are four teams of horses (red, black, white, and finally dappled/"grisled and bay") pulling chariots. "They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine, plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth." [3][24], Revelation's historical context may also influence the depiction of the black horse and its rider, Famine. [26]:86–87, Elliott further recites that, after the death of Commodus, a most turbulent period lasting 92 years unfolded during which time 32 emperors and 27 pretenders to the Empire hurled each other from the throne by incessant civil warfare.
Every instant of time in every province of the Roman world was afflicted by military tyrants and barbarous invaders—the sword from within and without. Engraving by Gustave Doré (1865). [1], Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, in his 1916 novel The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (filmed in 1921 and in 1962), provides an early example of this interpretation, writing "The horseman on the white horse was clad in a showy and barbarous attire.
Revelation 6 tells of a book/scroll in God's right hand that is sealed with seven seals. [16]:202, Diocletian ended this long period of anarchy, but the succession of civil wars and invasions caused much suffering, disorder and crime which brought the empire into a state of moral lethargy from which it never recovered. [16]:140,142–144, According to this interpretation, this period in Roman history, remarkable, both at its commencement and at its close, illustrated the glory of the empire where its limits were extended, though not without occasional wars, which were always uniformly triumphant and successful on the frontiers. [3][24], Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe their first prophet, Joseph Smith, revealed that the book described by John "contains the revealed will, mysteries, and the works of God; the hidden things of his economy concerning this earth during the seven thousand years of its continuance, or its temporal existence" and that the seals describe these things for the seven thousand years of the Earth's temporal existence, each seal representing 1,000 years.
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