1 Now I watched when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, “Come!” 2 And I looked, and behold, a white horse! And its rider had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering, and to conquer.
Descriptions of the horses in Zechariah’s prophecies:
Zechariah 1:9 Then I said, ‘What are these, my lord?’ The angel who talked with me said to me, ‘I will show you what they are.’ 10 So the man who was standing among the myrtle trees answered, ‘These are they whom the LORD has sent to patrol the earth.’ 11 And they answered the angel of the LORD who was standing among the myrtle trees, and said, ‘We have patrolled the earth, and behold, all the earth remains at rest.’ 12 Then the angel of the LORD said, ‘O LORD of hosts, how long will you have no mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, against which you have been angry these seventy years?’ 13 And the LORD answered gracious and comforting words to the angel who talked with me. 14 So the angel who talked with me said to me, ‘Cry out, Thus says the LORD of hosts: I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion. 15 And I am exceedingly angry with the nations that are at ease; for while I was angry but a little, they furthered the disaster. 16 Therefore, thus says the LORD, I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy; my house shall be built in it, declares the LORD of hosts, and the measuring line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem. 17 Cry out again, Thus says the LORD of hosts: My cities shall again overflow with prosperity, and the LORD will again comfort Zion and again choose Jerusalem.’”
Zechariah 6:1 Again I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, four chariots came out from between two mountains. And the mountains were mountains of bronze. 2 The first chariot had red horses, the second black horses, 3 the third white horses, and the fourth chariot dappled horses—all of them strong. 4 Then I answered and said to the angel who talked with me, “What are these, my lord?” 5 And the angel answered and said to me, “These are going out to the four winds of heaven, after presenting themselves before the Lord of all the earth. 6 The chariot with the black horses goes toward the north country, the white ones go after them, and the dappled ones go toward the south country.” 7 When the strong horses came out, they were impatient to go and patrol the earth. And he said, “Go, patrol the earth.” So they patrolled the earth. 8 Then he cried to me, “Behold, those who go toward the north country have set my Spirit at rest in the north country.”
We see in the Old Testament that God uses the horses to patrol the earth, but they were not ridden, and the chariots were empty. In Revelation there is a rider on the white horse. If we interpret the rider of this horse to be the Roman Emperors just after the siege on Jerusalem, 90AD, we can watch this prophecy unfold chronologically. The emperors are powerful, going over the face of the earth, and think themselves as not only as powerful as God, but exercising as much authority as God (gods). Going off the research done by Barnes, Benson, Henry, Elliot and others, they agree this is a Roman emperor, not Christ or a supposed antichrist. Christ does not carry a bow but a sword, and has crowns upon crowns, instead of a laurel-type crown. You can check the Strong’s references to see it’s a different Greek word of crown. Christ is also shown as continuously opening the seals. I am quoting from Wikipedia showing the fulfillment of the horses, riders and timeline of the opening of the first seal. See “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Apocalypse
“In Edward Bishop Elliott's interpretation, the Four Horsemen represent a prophecy of the Roman Empire's subsequent history; the horse's white colour signifies triumph, prosperity, and health in the Roman political body. For the next 80 or 90 years, succeeding the banishment of the prophet John to the island of Patmos and 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 agents of this prosperity, personified by the rider of the white horse, are these five emperors wearing crowns, who reigned with absolute authority and power under the guidance of virtue and wisdom, the armies being restrained by their firm and gentle hands.”
Nerva started to reign in 96 AD, and ushered in a time of peace that is referred to as “Pax Romana” or “Roman Peace.”
A word about the antichrist. Below is every reference in the Bible to the word antichrist:
1 John 2:18 Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.
1 John 2:22 Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son.
1 John 4:3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.
2 John 1:7 For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.
I want to caution you to assign traits to the word antichrist that are not there. According to John, the antichrist is one who is coming and many have come at the time of his writing. Again in 4:3 the spirit was coming and is now in the world already. His writing was before the siege of Jerusalem, which was the end of the age for the Jews, the destruction of the Temple and sacrifices, the last hour. The antichrist denies the Father and the Son. So much so that it denies that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. Remember that John was speaking to new Jewish converts at the time, so they would have wavered in their faith, going back to believing in the Law to save, not the Father and the Son. They would have denied that Jesus came and fulfilled the Law and that Jesus fulfilled all the prophecies of the coming Messiah in the Old Testament. Saying that a specific man or leader in the future can be the antichrist takes these incredibly few verses out of context.
3 When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Looking again to the Old Testament prophecies, the red horse is war and bloodshed. This verse says the red horse takes peace from the earth so that would also confirm that the previous white horse was peaceful.
(Wikipedia Four Horsemen) 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. The sword was a natural universal badge, among the Romans, of the military profession. The apocalyptic figure armed with a great sword indicated an undue authority and unnatural use of it. Military men in power, whose vocation was war and weapon the sword, rose by it and also fell. The unrestrained military, no longer subject to the Senate, transformed the Empire into a system of pure military despotism.
192 - 232 AD - In 192 AD Commodus was assassinated and this marks the end of the Golden Age of Rome, or the Pax Romana. The next 40 years show emperors being murdered, battling one another and trying to usurp their rivals. Wikipedia shows 24 failed usurpations from 192 - 285 AD. Read their Wikipedia page “Crisis of the Third Century.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_Third_Century
5 When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” And I looked, and behold, a black horse! And its rider had a pair of scales in his hand. 6 And I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine!”
It’s generally agreed upon by scholars that this horse speaks of the time of heavy taxation of the Roman Empire to help pay for the wars and their mighty military. The pair of scales depicts just and equitable prices for wheat and barley, and the voice implies a consciousness of a fair price for the goods. The black horse is Oppression
As Gibbon (who was not a Christian) wrote in his book, The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire:
The personal character of the emperors," he says, '* their victories, laws, follies, and fortunes, can interest us no further than as they are connected with the general history of the decline and fall of the monarchy. It is our attention to that great subject, that will not suffer us to overlook the important edict of Caracalla ; " l that is, in reference to its oppressive bearing, through the consequent aggravation of taxation, on the most vital interests of the empire. In fact the decisive testimony of history is unequivocal as to the distress that, not immediately alone, but lastingly and increasingly, resulted from it. The agriculture of the provinces was insensibly ruined. Preparation was made for famine ; which, as we shall see under the next Seal, soon succeeded : and, in its ultimate consequences, it involved not the mere territorial desolation of provinces, once the most fertile in the empire, but personal and family distress also, such as to drive parents in numbers to infanticide : indeed to an extent so unprecedented and alarming as to force the notice of the legislature ; of which a remedial law of Constantine remains the remarkable and authentic monument.”
7 And when the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” 8 And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth.
Now the rider of the horse is not an emperor here, so the death that follows is not a decree. We see death not at the hands of the emperor, but at the hands of famine, pestilence, and beasts as executed by God. Rome in the first century is believed to have 1.5 million people in the city, and from 300 AD to around 1400 AD, there would be less than 50,000, sometimes less than 20,000 in the city.
Ezekiel 5:15 You shall bed a reproach and a taunt, a warning and a horror, to the nations all around you, when I execute judgments on you in anger and fury, and with furious rebukes—I am the Lord; I have spoken— 16 when I send against you the deadly arrows of famine, arrows for destruction, which I will send to destroy you, and when I bring more and more famine upon you and break your supply of bread. 17 I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will rob you of your children. Pestilence and blood shall pass through you, and I will bring the sword upon you. I am the Lord; I have spoken.
(Wikipedia Four Horsemen) Again from Edward Gibbon: “...a period from the celebration of the great secular games by the Emperor Philip to the death of Gallienus (in AD 268) 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. 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.“ According to Elliott, Horae Apocalypticae: “famine, the inevitable consequence of carnage and oppression, which demolished the present crop as well as the hope of future harvests, produced the environment for an epidemic of diseases, the effects of scanty and unwholesome food. That furious plague (the Plague of Cyprian), which raged from 250 to 265, continued without interruption in every province, city and almost every family in the empire. During a portion of this time, 5000 people died daily in Rome; and many towns that had escaped the attacks of barbarians were entirely depopulated. For a time in the late 260s, the strength of Aurelian crushed the enemies of Rome, yet after his assassination a certain amount of them revived. 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. As for the wild beasts of the Earth, according to Elliott, it is a well-known law of nature that they quickly occupy the scenes of waste and depopulation—where the reign of man fails and the reign of beasts begins. After the reign of Gallienus and 20 or 30 years had passed, the multiplication of the animals had risen to such an extent in parts of the empire that they made it a 'crying evil'.”
9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. 10 They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” 11 Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.
Remember the saints in the early church who stood firm in their faith and gave all, even in the face of torture. They received robes of white to show their faithfulness unto death. The wiki page “Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire” goes into depth on the level of persecution, emperor by emperor. It’s a good read if you want to be reminded how the early church suffered to keep the words of Jesus alive.
Joseph Mede, A Key to the Apocalypse: "...they should endure for a little, until some of their brethren, who, after Christianity had begun to prevail, were, under Licinius, Julian, and the Arians, to be butchered in like manner, should be added to the number; and then, on the sounding of the trumpets, a remarkable vengeance should be taken on the empire for the guilt of so much blood." The continuation of the massacre of christians with Augustus Diocletian (r. 283–305) began the Diocletianic persecution, the final general persecution of Christians, which continued to be enforced in parts of the empire until the Augustus Galerius (r. 305–311) issued the Edict of Serdica.
Wikipedia, “Persecutions of Christians in the Roman Empire”: Christians were persecuted throughout the Roman Empire, beginning in the 1st century AD and ending in the 4th century. Originally a polytheistic empire in the traditions of Roman paganism and the Hellenistic religion, as Christianity spread through the empire, it came into ideological conflict with the imperial cult of ancient Rome. Pagan practices such as making sacrifices to the deified emperors or other gods were abhorrent to Christians as their beliefs prohibited idolatry. The state and other members of civic society punished Christians for treason, various rumored crimes, illegal assembly, and for introducing an alien cult that led to Roman apostasy.[1] The first, localized Neronian persecution occurred under Emperor Nero (r. 54–68) in Rome. A number of mostly localized persecutions occurred during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (r. 161–180).[2] After a lull, persecution resumed under Emperors Decius (r. 249–251) and Trebonianus Gallus (r. 251–253). The Decian persecution was particularly extensive. The persecution of Emperor Valerian (r. 253–260) ceased with his notable capture by the Sasanian Empire's Shapur I (r. 240–270) at the Battle of Edessa during the Roman–Persian Wars. His successor, Gallienus (r. 253–268), halted the persecutions.
Now for the fellow servants who will complete their number with the Diocletian Persecution.
The Augustus Diocletian (r. 283–305) began the Diocletianic persecution, the final general persecution of Christians, which continued to be enforced in parts of the empire until the Augustus Galerius (r. 305–311) issued the Edict of Serdica and the Augustus Maximinus Daza (r. 310–313) died. After Constantine the Great (r. 306–337) defeated his rival Maxentius (r. 306–312) at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in October 312, he and his co-emperor, Licinius, issued the Edict of Milan (313), which permitted all religions, including Christianity, to be tolerated
In the winter of 302, Galerius urged Diocletian to begin a general persecution of the Christians. Diocletian was wary, and asked the oracle of Apollo for guidance. The oracle's reply was read as an endorsement of Galerius's position, and a general persecution was called on 24 February 303. According to recent research, "At least nine imperial orders were issued in 303 to 312 against Christianity. While Diocletian's orders were more concerned with the privileged upper classes of Christians, Maximinus Daia's orders were aimed at isolating all Christians from the Roman community"
There’s no way to know how many were killed in this persecution, the number varies from a few thousand, to possibly 60,000. Read Wikipedia’s “Diocletian Persecution” to see all the edicts and punishments issued by Diocletian in the 10 years of horror that Christians endured.
12 When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, 13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. 14 The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.
Isaiah 34:1 Draw near, O nations, to hear, and give attention, O peoples! Let the earth hear, and all that fills it; the world, and all that comes from it. 2 For the Lord is enraged against all the nations, and furious against all their host; he has devoted them to destruction, has given them over for slaughter. 3 Their slain shall be cast out, and the stench of their corpses shall rise; the mountains shall flow with their blood. 4 All the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll. All their host shall fall, as leaves fall from the vine, like leaves falling from the fig tree…
…(v11) The LORD will stretch out over Edom a measuring line of chaos and a plumb line of destruction. 12 No nobles will be left to proclaim a king, and all her princes will come to nothing. 13 Her towers will be overgrown with thorns, her fortresses with thistles and briers. She will become a haunt for jackals, an abode for ostriches. 14 he desert creatures will meet with hyenas, and one wild goat will call to another. There the night creature will settle and find her place of repose. 15 here the owl will make her nest; she will lay and hatch her eggs and gather her brood under her shadow. Even there the birds of prey will gather, each with its mate.
The verses from Isaiah were about the nations that attacked Israel and took Judah captive.
Zechariah 1:15 And I am exceedingly angry with the nations that are at ease; for while I was angry but a little, they furthered the disaster. They had done the will of God by inflicting judgement against the Jews but they took things too far, and exceeded the punishment
God had for his people. God now has reached his limit of watching his people suffer and will inflict wrath on Rome.
The sixth seal contains the following six trumpets. The seventh trumpet contains the vials. These verses start in 286 AD with the earthquake, the splitting of the land, which is when the empire divides into the eastern and western Roman Empire in 286 AD.
The sun is the emperors, the moon the senate, judges, or other lower-ruling authorities, the stars are people of importance. Here the stars are compared to a fig tree, which is also used to describe the Jews, so the stars are the church leaders. The most oppressive leader to the church was Diocletian, covered in the previous verses. His first edict was issued to the army, where people had to make a sacrifice to the gods or be purged from the military. Wikipedia Diocletianic Persecution:
Diocletian requested that the edict be pursued "without bloodshed", against Galerius's demands that all those refusing to sacrifice be burned alive. In spite of Diocletian's request, local judges often enforced executions during the persecution, as capital punishment was among their discretionary powers. Galerius's recommendation—burning alive—became a common method of executing Christians in the East. After the edict was posted in Nicomedia, a man named Eutius tore it down and ripped it up, shouting "Here are your Gothic and Sarmatian triumphs!" He was arrested for treason, tortured, and burned alive soon after, becoming the edict's first martyr.
Verses 14 through 17 deal with the impending wrath of the lamb which is fulfilled in the trumpet judgements. The mountain of Rome and the islands of its provinces will feel the power of God’s judgement because Rome will fall.
15 Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, 16 calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, 17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”
The wrath will be so great that everyone, even slave and free, will hide in the caves and cellars. Here is Jesus talking about the coming wrath in the siege of Jerusalem:
Luke 23:28 But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ 30 Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ 31 For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”
After Rome had fallen, there were three volcanic eruptions over the earth that caused a “volcanic winter of 536 AD.” This would have affected everyone, great and small, and literally cause people to hide in caves and cellars from the fallout of ash. Here’s documentation of the effects from Wikipedia:
In 538, the Roman statesman Cassiodorus described the following to one of his subordinates in letter 25:
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