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.
The horse is used to identify Rome, just as the goat and ram were used to describe Greece and Medo-Persia in Daniel 8. Rome is also described as the dreadful beast in Daniel 7, just as Greece was described as a winged leopard with 4 heads, and Medo-Persia was described as a bear raised up on one side, with three ribs in its mouth. Many bible scholars that use the Historicist view of Revelation have interpreted Rome as the four horses. There are many books with great detail that show the fulfillment, so if you would like to know more, read those authors. One of the most remarkable ways that proved this chapter prophesies about Rome was because of the evidence provided by Edward Gibbon, who authored the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He provided historical proof of Revelation's fulfillment, yet he was not even a Christian! For the sake of time, I won't go into great detail with the historical proof. The evidence that you can search online is very extensive so look into any of this when you have a few hours to do some research!
One reason why God would use horses to depict Rome is because of the four horses in Zechariah 1 and 6. The horses were sent by God to patrol the earth and report back. Rome was the first empire described in Daniel to have it's leaders consider themselves as gods. This was enacted by Augustus in 27 BC.
Another is that horses were used for war. Rome conquered by an incredibly skilled militia, and their tactics are legendary still to this day. We can look to the book of Joel when he described the coming army chapter 2:4 Their appearance is like that of horses, and they gallop like swift steeds. 5 With a sound like that of chariots they bound over the mountaintops, like the crackling of fire consuming stubble, like a mighty army deployed for battle.
The bow describes Emperor Domitian who started ruling in 81 AD, just after Titus, who sieged Jerusalem. He was an exceptionally skilled archer, known for shooting arrows between slaves' spread fingers at great distances. The white horse comes at a time of peace because in verse 3 it says peace is taken from the earth. Wikipedia has a very good page describing the events of these four horsemen. I quote from The Four Horsemen “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.” The white color of the horse is peace, the laurel wreath is victory.
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.
In 192 AD Commodus was assassinated and this marks the end of the Golden Age of Rome, or the Pax Romana, which means Roman Peace. The next 40 years show emperors being murdered, battling one another and trying to usurp their rivals. Wikipedia Crisis of the Third Century shows 24 failed usurpations from 192 - 285 AD. Red is death by bloodshed. Again from Wikipedia The 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.
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!”
On the Wikipedia page it suggests that the black horse is not oppression, but famine. I put Barnes' interpretation here because defining black as oppression instead of famine fits with other parts of the prophecy, like the sun became black as sackcloth in verse 12. Famine leads to death, and would be part of the pale horse prophecy.
From Barnes commentary on biblehub.com "From the color of the horse here introduced we should naturally look for some dire calamity, though the nature of the calamity would not be designated by the mere use of the word "black." What the calamity was to be must be determined by what follows in the symbol. Famine, pestiilence, oppression, heavy taxation, tyranny, invasion - any of these might be denoted by the color of the horse.
(c) The balances: "and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand." The original word rendered here as "a pair of balances," is ζυγὸν zugon. This word properly means a yoke, serving to couple anything together, as a yoke for cattle. Hence it is used to denote the beam of a balance, or of a pair of scales - and is evidently so used here. The idea is, that something was to be weighed, in order to ascertain either its quantity or its value. Scales or balances are the emblems of justice or equity (compare Job 31:6; Psalm 62:9; Proverbs 11:1; Proverbs 16:11); and when joined with symbols that denote the sale of grain and fruit by weight, become the symbol of scarcity. Thus, "bread by weight" Leviticus 26:26 denotes scarcity. So in Ezekiel 4:16, "And they shall eat bread by weight." The use of balances here as a symbol would signify that something was to be accurately and carefully weighed out.
The connection leads us to suppose that this would pertain to the necessaries of life, and that it would occur either in consequence of scarcity, or because there would be an accurate or severe exaction, as in collecting a revenue on these articles. The balance was commonly the symbol of equity and justice; but it was also, sometimes, the symbol of exaction and oppression, as in Hosea 12:7; "The balance of deceit is in his hands; he loveth to oppress."
After the end of Pax Romana, Rome lost it's peace and plunged into the Crisis of the Third Century from (235–284 CE). Starting with Severus and Caracalle who ruled until 217 AD, there was active expansion of the Roman militia which increased the cost of the Roman military. By 250 AD, the Roman military budget accounted for an estimated 60-80% of the empire's total state expenditure. As with any government that hungers for war, they increased taxes and devalued the currency in order to fund their war machine. As the Roman currency was continually devalued, inflation became rampant, and the Roman economy went into freefall. Soon, money became nearly worthless. People stopped using money and began to barter instead. This meant that the Roman government, which relied on tax revenues, faced bankruptcy. It had to collect taxes in the form of food and goods instead of as money. The government assigned a price to the poor man's food, and was ordered not to harm, or to be equitable, to the oil and wine.
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.
The rider of the horse is not an emperor here, so the death that follows is not a decree, and the death is not by bloodshed, as in the red horse. We see death not at the hands of the emperor, but at the hands of famine, pestilence, and beasts as executed by God. We can look to Ezekiel 5 to see how God enters into judgement with a land. 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.
The term a fourth of the earth applies to the judgement of Rome, or a fourth of the empire. In this instance, "a fourth" is actually an incorrect interpretation. Looking at Strong's interpretation of fourth Cognate: 5067 tétartos – fourth; (figuratively) a part of the whole (totality, all four quarters). It can be read as the four quarters of the earth. This will help the understanding of the interpretation because famine, pestilence and plague happened in all four parts of the empire, not a fourth of the empire. In the scroll judgements, when a prophecy refers to the earth, it is speaking of just the Roman empire. We will have the entire earth involved in the later judgements that come with the second prophecy in chapter 10. For example, in chapter 18 there is the millstone judgment, where the great city is judged, not a beast or empire.
The sword was not just for military ventures. In 248 AD Rome celebrated it's 1000 year reign, and shortly after, Emperor Decius rose to power. Decius believed the empire's economic and military struggles were due to divine displeasure. He mandated that the population demonstrate allegiance to the old pagan gods and passed a decree to have people sacrifice to these gods. To prove they complied they would get a certificate, if they didn't comply, citizens who refused to obtain the certificate were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and potentially executed. Decius's was the first emperor to try to eradicate Christianity across the entire empire.
Soon after the persecution started, there was a pestilence called the plague of Cyprian which caused massive fatalities across the Roman Empire. It was reported to have 5,000 deaths per day in Rome alone at its peak. This plague was named after Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthage who documented its devastation. He encouraged Christians to see the plague as a test of their righteousness and an opportunity to show love to both believers and their enemies. Christians organized themselves as a battalion of caregivers. They provided basic food, water, and nursing, which saved many lives that otherwise would have been lost to dehydration and weakness
For the judgement of famine, we might look to Genesis when the tribes of Israel went to Egypt because of drought. Rome did not suffer from drought in this judgment, instead famine was caused by a weakened economy due to emphasizing military conquests, the loss of farm workers because of plague, and the infrastructure collapse that was a result of these, combined with invasion from outside. We can look back to Wikipedia The Four Horsemen for an explanation... 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.
These verses show that there would be 2 waves of persecution. The souls crying out here are those that were taken under the severe persecution under Decius in 250 AD. They were crying out but told to rest because more was to come. As difficult as the Decian Persecution was, Diocletian's "Great Persecution" was far more severe, systematic, and widespread than Decius' persecution. While the Decian persecution forced conformity through state sacrifices, Diocletian launched a decade-long campaign designed to completely dismantle the Church’s infrastructure and legal rights. A series of edicts from Diocletian and Galerius ordered the destruction of churches, the burning of Christian scriptures, and the stripping of legal and civil rights. Initially, those edicts focused on clergy, but later it was broadened to mandate public sacrifices for all citizens. If they didn't comply, property was confiscated, and Christians faced imprisonment, hard labor, or execution.
The white robe is a high honor, they had given themselves to death just as our savior was called to. These tribulation saints are mentioned again in Revelation chapter 7, and they are given a special reward. 13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” 14 I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 15 “Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. 16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. 17 For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” Tribulation saints know how to stay in the Shelter of God, they hunger and thirst, they endure persecution and condemnation by those in authority, and they endure suffering and mourning, even to the death. Their reward is the removal of that pain and they will be one of the multitudes surrounding the throne of God.
12 When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth (made of goat hair), the full moon became like blood,
An earthquake shakes and splits the land, and this was fulfilled prophetically by the breaking apart of the Roman Empire under Diocletian in 286 AD. He divided the empire into East and West, and each half was also divided in two and each half ruled by an Augustus and a Caesar, making it the Tetrarchy that was shown above in verse 8. In the Eastern half, Diocletian was the main Augustus, and Galerius was his junior Emperor. These two leaders are the sun and the moon, just as Jacob was the sun and his wives were the moon in Joseph's dream in Genesis. The addition of the word "full" in describing the moon also shows that even though Galerius was lesser in rank, he still had full authority over his portion of the empire. We know from the horses that black is oppression and red is bloodshed, so we can look to history to see how Diocletian issued edicts to oppress and Galerius contributed to bloodshed. Diocletian's first "Edict against the Christians" was published in 303. The edict ordered the destruction of Christian scriptures and places of worship across the empire, and prohibited Christians from assembling for worship. Remarkably, Diocletian requested that the edict be pursued "without bloodshed," but Galerius did not agree and he demanded 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.
13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter (unripe) 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. 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?”
Verses 13, 14, and 15 are events after the reign of Constantine, shown in Chapter 8.
Stars are lights in the heavenlies, so these would be those elevated in leadership or authority, but still under the main authority of the sun and moon, much like Joseph and his brothers were stars. Isaiah 34:4 has a similar prophecy about wicked Edom, * 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. The hosts of heaven for a pagan nation is the false prophets, described in the previous chapter as envoys of peace in 33:7. Edom was completely destroyed, they were rolled up like a scroll, showing they will only survive in the scroll of history. The same will be for Rome, it will be destroyed through the trumpet judgements. The stars in the case of Western Rome would be the mighty ones under the Augustus and Emperors - those in command of Rome's mighty military. After Constantine's reign, the Western Roman military progressively collapsed. Repeated civil wars, catastrophic financial losses, and an inability to maintain troop levels forced Rome to rely on Germanic mercenaries who eventually seized control of the Roman provinces. Here's a quote from Arther Ferrill in his book, The Fall of the Roman Empire: The Military Explanation...The primary cause of Rome’s fall was not internal weakness, as some historians have argued, but the deterioration of the Roman army.
The fig tree is shown to be God's land in Joel 1:6 For a nation has invaded My land, powerful and without number; its teeth are the teeth of a lion, and its fangs are the fangs of a lioness. 7 It has laid waste My grapevine and splintered My fig tree. It's an analogy of Jerusalem when Jesus cursed the fig tree in Matthew 21:18-19, and two chapters later he would pronounce the seven woes to the Pharisees. God has a promise to bring back Israel, and a new Jerusalem, but it's not yet to the point of being fulfilled because the figs are unripe. We can expect to see a diaspora because they are swept off the branches by a strong wind. The wind is the anti-Jewish propaganda that started after Constantine made Christianity the religion of the empire.
Mountain is a mighty system of leadership with a pinnacle expanding to being broad at the bottom, much like a government. There would not be any mountains of the Western Roman empire left as they were. The mighty city of Rome would be attacked and prophetically thrown in the sea in 401 AD.
"Islands are smaller protrusions of land in the midst of the waters. Biblehub's Topical show that islands symbolize isolation, remoteness, and the far reaches of the earth. They represent the extent of God's dominion and the reach of His message. The inclusion of islands in prophetic and eschatological passages highlights the comprehensive nature of God's plan for humanity, encompassing even the most distant and isolated places. These would be Roman outposts, or places of settlement in the frontier lands from the British Isles to the Germanic lands. Western Rome surrendered the British lands in 410 AD and the eastern lands along the Rhine in 406 AD.
We have a judgement of God that will strike fear even into the rich and powerful, slave and free. There is a coming event that they would want to hide in caves to avoid the fallout. The end of the Roman empire left a vacuum of leadership which is termed the dark ages, but there was a literal time of darkness that affected every living being. The "Volcanic Winter" of 536 was a volcano eruption that affected rich and poor alike, causing 18 months of darkness, but there was more. Two more volcanoes would erupt causing a decade of oppression, coinciding with the Plague of Justinian and poor crops due to the failed climate.
From Wikipedia Volcanic Winter of 536
In 538, the Roman statesman Cassiodorus described the following to one of his subordinates in letter 25:
The sun's rays were weak, and they appeared a ""bluish"" colour.
At noon, no shadows from people were visible on the ground.
The heat from the sun was feeble.
The moon, even when full, was ""empty of splendour""
""A winter without storms, a spring without mildness, and a summer without heat""
Prolonged frost and unseasonable drought
The seasons ""seem to be all jumbled up together""
The sky is described as ""blended with alien elements"" just like cloudy weather, except prolonged. It was ""stretched like a hide across the sky"" and prevented the ""true colours"" of the sun and moon from being seen, along with the sun's warmth.
Frosts during harvest, which made apples harden and grapes sour.
The need to use stored food to last through the situation.
Fellow body of Christ, the benefit of studying this prophecy is to show God's unchanging nature. Even though this was fulfilled over 1500 years ago, the system of judgement is the same. The fall of Rome is the judgement of one of the heads of the red dragon beast (Chapter 17) and that beast will be completely destroyed (Revelation 20). The dragon worships Babylon, and any nation that follows after Babylon will be destroyed like Rome was. The coming of Jesus (Revelation 1:7) is a test of our faithfulness. There is a reason he's called a lion! Guard your hearts, understand the workings of justice, and keep your hearts prepared for the suffering to come. Psalm 91 is your shield against the coming death, famine, plague, civil war, taxation, and persecution. Be prepared to give your life as Christ was prepared, and receive your white robe if that is your calling.
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