And when it opened the fourth seal, I heard [the voice of] the fourth living creature saying, Come [and see].
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And I saw and behold, a pale horse, and he that sat upon it, his name [was] Death, and hades followed with him; and authority was given to him over the fourth of the earth to slay with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and by the beasts of the earth.
Revelation 6:8 closes the first four seals, and it is the darkest: a horse the colour of a corpse, a rider named Death, and Hades coming with him. The verse raises three questions at once — who are Death and Hades, why are four different plagues named together, and why is the damage capped at a quarter of the earth?
The horse's colour matches the name of its rider.
The fourth seal was a pale, ghastly horse — the colour of death. So the name of its rider is Death, and Hades followed with him. To make the point plainer still, we are told that he was given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death (pestilence, perhaps), and by the wild animals of the earth.
Death and Hades are not the same, and each keeps something different.
The four seals deal with living men, so death, which carries them off, stands out most. Hades appears only as the one who receives those death has cut off — he acts as death's hearse, and that is why he is given no horse of his own. Hades does not follow after death; he comes with him. The two are keepers, one of men's bodies, the other of their souls. At the close of the thousand years' reign they give up their prisoners, and are themselves destroyed: they are pictured as persons and thrown into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:14). Hades means the state that follows at once after death, the state between death and resurrection, and resurrection brings it to an end. Death and Hades are here used in relation to the ungodly only. The word Hades just means "the unseen," so the English word "Hell" is not a fair equivalent for it.
Each earlier seal carried one instrument. Here four come at once, and one word in the list needs unpacking.
Each of the earlier seals names one instrument of judgment. Here there are four — the same four the Lord threatened guilty Jerusalem with long ago. The only difference is that here the "beasts" are named last, and "death," third in the list, should be read as "pestilence." The sword of the second seal and the hunger of the third come back under the fourth seal, joined by two more.
Another writer names the four from Ezekiel and shows what each one does to a land.
Death is given power over "a fourth of the earth," and comes down on it with God's four disastrous acts of judgment — "sword, famine, wild beasts, and pestilence" (Ezekiel 14:21). The sword ruins whole lands. The survivors are left with wasted fields and supplies, and die of hunger and plague. Wild animals leave their dens and prowl over the ruined country.
The three seals before this one lead here step by step.
This is the natural outcome of what has gone before. Man's pride (the white horse) wants to conquer. That offends the pride of others, and so it leads to bloodshed (the red horse). Bloodshed leads just as surely to famine (the black horse), and the pale look of death from famine, pestilence and the like (the pale horse) follows close behind.
Death rides, but Death does not decide.
We are reminded again that these judgments — their order, their character, how long they last, how severe they are — all come from the throne of God. "Authority," we read, "was given to him," not to "them." Whether the text reads "him" or "them" is disputed, but the internal evidence decides it.
One writer reads the limit as mercy at work.
Here mercy seems to step in with a tighter limit: he is given authority over a fourth of the earth... So this is the natural end of the first series of seals — a complete end, except for the limit God's mercy sets. After all, the rainbow of promise stands over these clouds of terrible judgment.
The same restraint is read as the Lord holding back what He could send in full.
In the limitations of the woes of the seal period, we see a mark of the lingering mercy of our Lord over this world, who is not willing that any should perish.
Conquest, war, hunger and plague have happened in every century, so people will explain these away.
So man would explain these things away, and the wise are caught in their own cleverness. But we know in advance, from God's word, that a time of conquest is coming — then bloody warfare, then famine, and last of all the pouring out of God's severe plagues. The heavenly saints must be set in rest and peace in the presence of God, and the church safely sheltered, before these judgments begin.
- Colour. The horse is the shade of a corpse, and its rider's name matches it: Death, with Hades at his side.
- Custody. Death holds the body, Hades the soul. Both are temporary jailers. One day they give up their prisoners and go into the lake of fire themselves.
- Four. Sword, hunger, pestilence and wild beasts — Ezekiel's four judgments, let loose together, each one growing out of the seal before it.
- Limit. Authority is given, and only over a fourth of the earth. The cap on the damage is mercy at work inside judgment.
- Warning. These blows look like ordinary history, so people will explain them away. God's word announced them in advance, and His people are sheltered before they begin.