The Four Horsemen
What the Words of Revelation 6 Reveal: Decoding the First Four Seals with Scripture’s Own Vocabulary
“Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.” — Zechariah 4:6 (KJV)
1. Why the Horsemen Confuse Readers, and the Key to Reading Them
Few passages in Scripture are better known, or more misunderstood, than the four horsemen of Revelation 6. Most readers see only war, famine, and death, and stop there. But Revelation is written in symbols, and Scripture itself shows how to read them. Sometimes it explains a symbol outright: “The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches” (Revelation 1:20). More often, it uses the same words and pictures elsewhere, in the prophets, in the Psalms, and in Jesus’ own parables. When those uses are gathered, the symbols explain themselves.
That is the method of this paper. For each horseman, we take the key words in the original Greek, give their Strong’s Concordance numbers, and list every verse in the New Testament where Scripture uses them, with the Old Testament passages behind them. Then we look at what those uses show. Nothing is asked to be taken on trust: every reader can check every verse. The result is a reading that can be tested, not guessed.
A note on what follows. The interpretation in this paper is my best understanding of Scripture, reached by following its own examples and patterns. It is held to one rule above all others:
Rule 1: No Scriptural conflicts. No conclusion here may contradict any passage of Scripture. Where Scripture does not settle a detail, I say so plainly.
Prophecy often moves from near to far without warning. Isaiah wrote, “To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God” (Isaiah 61:2). When Jesus read that passage at Nazareth, he stopped after “the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book” (Luke 4:19-20). One verse spans two comings of the Messiah, with no gap marked in the text. Revelation announces the same kind of movement in its first chapter: “Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter” (Revelation 1:19). The seals, too, move from events already under way to events still ahead.
Where this reading stands. Scholars group interpretations of Revelation into four schools: preterist (mostly fulfilled by AD 70), historicist (unfolding through church history), futurist (mostly still ahead), and idealist (timeless symbols). This paper follows a historicist-futurist reading: the first three seals have opened in recent history and are still running, and the fourth seal is still future.
2. The Theme of the Whole Book: God Is in Control
Before a single seal is opened, John is shown a throne: “a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne” (Revelation 4:2). The order matters. Revelation shows the throne before the troubles, so the reader knows who is in control before anything is unleashed.
Every horseman acts only because something is given to him: “a crown was given unto him” (6:2); “power was given to him” and “there was given unto him a great sword” (6:4); “power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth” (6:8). Not one rider acts on his own authority.
And the horses themselves are pictures of God’s Spirit at work. Zechariah saw colored horses, and was told: “These are the four spirits of the heavens, which go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth” (Zechariah 6:5). In Revelation, the Lamb has “seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth” (Revelation 5:6). The horses go forth the same way. God’s campaign is carried out as Zechariah heard it: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6).
3. The Court Convenes
The seals do not open at random. Daniel saw a long persecution first, and then a court: the saints “shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time. But the judgment shall sit” (Daniel 7:25-26). Scripture’s order is persecution for “a time and times and the dividing of time” (the 1,260 years, in the day-for-a-year reading of the Continuous Jubilee Calendar, commonly dated AD 538 to 1798), and then the heavenly court convenes.
John saw the same court. The two scenes match point for point:
| Feature | Daniel 7 | Revelation 4–5 |
|---|---|---|
| Thrones set | “I beheld till the thrones were cast down [set in place], and the Ancient of days did sit” (7:9) | “a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne” (4:2), with “four and twenty seats” (4:4) |
| Fire before the throne | “his throne was like the fiery flame… A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him” (7:9-10) | “seven lamps of fire burning before the throne” (4:5) |
| The countless host | “thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him” (7:10) | “the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands” (5:11) |
| The books | “the judgment was set, and the books were opened” (7:10) | “a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals” (5:1) |
| The Son of man receives authority | “one like the Son of man… came to the Ancient of days… And there was given him dominion” (7:13-14) | The Lamb “came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne,” and heaven sings, “Thou art worthy” (5:7, 9) |
| Judgment for the saints | “judgment was given to the saints of the most High” (7:22) | The seals open, and the saints are vindicated (6:9-11) |
The shared phrase “ten thousand times ten thousand” alone shows that John is describing the scene Daniel saw.
4. The Lamb Takes the Book
No one in heaven or earth was found worthy to open the book, until “the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof” (Revelation 5:5). The Lion turns out to be a Lamb “as it had been slain” (5:6). He has earned the right to open the seals by his death: “Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood” (5:9).
So the seals are Christ’s own campaign. He opens every one (6:1, 3, 5, 7), and the horsemen go out at his command, like the horses Zechariah saw, “whom the LORD hath sent to walk to and fro through the earth” (Zechariah 1:10).
5. The Four Faces
Around the throne stand four living creatures: “the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle” (Revelation 4:7). Ezekiel saw the same four faces (Ezekiel 1:10). As each seal opens, one creature calls, in this same order, “Come and see” (6:1, 3, 5, 7). Each face fits the horseman it announces.
The lion calls the white horse. “The Lion of the tribe of Juda… hath prevailed” (5:5) uses the same verb, nikaō, “to overcome,” as the rider who went out “conquering, and to conquer” (6:2).
The calf calls the red horse. The calf, a young ox, is Scripture’s sacrificial animal and its laboring servant. Paul applies “Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn” to those who labor in the gospel (1 Corinthians 9:9-14). The red horse is the seal of those who labor, and are slain, for the Word.
The face of a man calls the black horse. The Father “hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man” (John 5:27). The seal of the balances is announced by the face of a man.
The flying eagle calls the pale horse: swiftness. Scripture’s most common use of the eagle is speed. Judgment comes as fast as an eagle flies, and so does rescue for those the eagle carries away. The eagle also sees from far off and strikes its prey at once:
| What the eagle shows | Where Scripture says it |
|---|---|
| Swiftness of judgment | “as swift as the eagle flieth” (Deuteronomy 28:49, among the covenant curses); “as the eagle that hasteth to the prey” (Job 9:26); “Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven” (Lamentations 4:19) |
| Horses swifter than eagles | “his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe unto us! for we are spoiled” (Jeremiah 4:13); “Their horses also are swifter than the leopards… they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat” (Habakkuk 1:8) |
| The eagle and the trumpet | “Set the trumpet to thy mouth. He shall come as an eagle against the house of the LORD, because they have transgressed my covenant” (Hosea 8:1) |
| Eyes that see from afar | “Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high?… From thence she seeketh the prey, and her eyes behold afar off” (Job 39:27-29) |
| Gathering at judgment | “wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together” (Matthew 24:28; Luke 17:37) |
| Swift rescue for God’s people | “I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself” (Exodus 19:4); “As an eagle… spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings” (Deuteronomy 32:11); “they shall mount up with wings as eagles” (Isaiah 40:31); “to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness” (Revelation 12:14) |
The eagle announces the pale horse because the fourth seal is the moment judgment arrives with the eagle’s speed, and it is also the moment God’s people must be carried to safety as swiftly. Hosea joins the eagle to the trumpet, and the trumpets begin with the fourth seal.
(Scripture does not state these connections between the faces and the horsemen in so many words; they are drawn from how Scripture uses each creature. In Revelation 8:13, where the King James Version reads “an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying… Woe, woe, woe,” many Greek manuscripts read “an eagle,” which would join the eagle to the trumpets directly.)
6. The First Seal: The White Horse
“And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.” (Revelation 6:1-2)
The crown: stephanos (G4735). Used in 18 verses of the New Testament: Matthew 27:29; Mark 15:17; John 19:2; 19:5; 1 Corinthians 9:25; Philippians 4:1; 1 Thessalonians 2:19; 2 Timothy 4:8; James 1:12; 1 Peter 5:4; Revelation 2:10; 3:11; 4:4; 4:10; 6:2; 9:7; 12:1; 14:14.
- “when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head” (Matthew 27:29)
- “Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns” (John 19:5)
- “we an incorruptible” crown (1 Corinthians 9:25)
What Scripture’s uses show: Stephanos is the victor’s crown, the reward of those who endure: Paul’s “incorruptible” crown (1 Corinthians 9:25), the “crown of life” (James 1:12; Revelation 2:10), the “crown of righteousness” (2 Timothy 4:8), and the elders’ “crowns of gold” (Revelation 4:4). Most striking, it is the word for the crown of thorns Jesus wore at the cross (Matthew 27:29; John 19:5). The crown given to the first rider is the crown Christ won through suffering. (The locusts of 9:7 wear “as it were crowns like gold”: an imitation of the victor’s crown, not the real one.)
The kings’ crowns, for comparison: diadēma (G1238). Used in 3 verses of the New Testament: Revelation 12:3; 13:1; 19:12.
What Scripture’s uses show: A diadēma is a crown of rule, and it appears only three times: on the dragon (“seven crowns upon his heads,” 12:3), on the beast’s ten horns (“ten crowns,” 13:1), and on Christ at his return (“many crowns,” 19:12). The ten kings wear crowns of political rule; the first rider wears the victor’s crown.
White: leukos (G3022). Used in 23 verses of the New Testament: Matthew 5:36; 17:2; 28:3; Mark 9:3; 16:5; Luke 9:29; John 4:35; 20:12; Acts 1:10; Revelation 1:14; 2:17; 3:4; 3:5; 3:18; 4:4; 6:2; 6:11; 7:9; 7:13; 14:14; 19:11; 19:14; 20:11.
What Scripture’s uses show: Every use of white in Revelation belongs to what is holy: Christ’s hair (1:14), the overcomers’ white stone and raiment (2:17; 3:4-5, 18), the elders (4:4), the martyrs’ robes (6:11), the great multitude (7:9, 13), the Son of man’s cloud (14:14), Christ’s own white horse and the armies of heaven (19:11, 14), and the great white throne (20:11). In the Gospels it is the white of the Transfiguration and of the angels at the empty tomb (Matthew 17:2; 28:3). White never marks evil in Scripture’s usage.
”Conquering, and to conquer”: nikaō (G3528). Used in 24 verses of the New Testament: Luke 11:22; John 16:33; Romans 3:4; 12:21; 1 John 2:13; 2:14; 4:4; 5:4; 5:5; Revelation 2:7; 2:11; 2:17; 2:26; 3:5; 3:12; 3:21; 5:5; 6:2; 11:7; 12:11; 13:7; 15:2; 17:14; 21:7.
What Scripture’s uses show: Nikaō is overwhelmingly the word of Christ’s victory and his people’s: “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33); “the Lion of the tribe of Juda… hath prevailed” (Revelation 5:5); “even as I also overcame” (3:21); and the promise to “him that overcometh” in each of the seven churches (2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21). In fairness, it is also used twice of the beast’s war on the saints (11:7; 13:7), so the word alone does not settle the rider’s identity; the crown and the color decide it.
The bow: toxon (G5115). Used only here in the New Testament, so its meaning comes from the Old Testament. A righteous rider with a bow appears in Psalm 45, a psalm of the Messiah: “in thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth and meekness and righteousness… Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies” (Psalm 45:4-5). The Greek Old Testament uses the same word, toxon, for God’s covenant bow: “I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth” (Genesis 9:13). No arrows are mentioned in Revelation 6:2, and nothing is said of killing. (That last point is an observation from silence.)
First. Jesus set the order himself: “the gospel must first be published among all nations” (Mark 13:10); “this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world… and then shall the end come” (Matthew 24:14). The first seal is the gospel going out.
7. The Second Seal: The Red Horse
“And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see. And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.” (Revelation 6:3-4)
The sword: machaira (G3162). Used in 26 verses of the New Testament: Matthew 10:34; 26:47; 26:51; 26:52; 26:55; Mark 14:43; 14:47; 14:48; Luke 21:24; 22:36; 22:38; 22:49; 22:52; John 18:10; 18:11; Acts 12:2; 16:27; Romans 8:35; 13:4; Ephesians 6:17; Hebrews 4:12; 11:34; 11:37; Revelation 6:4; 13:10; 13:14.
- “I came not to send peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34)
- “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17)
- “he killed James the brother of John with the sword” (Acts 12:2)
What Scripture’s uses show: Machaira is the word for the Word of God as a sword: “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17); “the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword” (Hebrews 4:12). It is Jesus’ own word: “I came not to send peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34). It is also the sword that fell on believers for their faith: James “killed… with the sword” (Acts 12:2); the faithful “slain with the sword” (Hebrews 11:37); “shall… persecution, or famine… or sword” separate us from the love of Christ? (Romans 8:35). The second seal’s sword is the Word going out, and the sword raised against those who carry it.
”To take peace from the earth.” The second seal joins the same two ideas as Matthew 10:34: peace taken away, and a sword given. Jesus explained the division he meant: “I am come to set a man at variance against his father… And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household” (Matthew 10:35-36); “Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division” (Luke 12:51). And the order is the same as Jesus’ own mission: in Matthew 10 he first sends his disciples out to preach (10:5-7), then warns them of persecution and the sword (10:16-36).
”That they should kill one another”: sphazō (G4969). Used in 9 verses of the New Testament: 1 John 3:12; Revelation 5:6; 5:9; 5:12; 6:4; 6:9; 13:3; 13:8; 18:24.
- “Cain… slew his brother… Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous” (1 John 3:12)
- “slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held” (Revelation 6:9)
What Scripture’s uses show: Sphazō is the word for the slaying of the righteous. It is the Lamb “as it had been slain” (5:6, 9, 12; 13:8), the souls “slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held” in the fifth seal (6:9), and “the blood of prophets, and of saints” (18:24). Its only use outside Revelation is Scripture’s first martyrdom: Cain “slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous” (1 John 3:12). “Kill one another” is brother killing brother because of righteousness, the very division Jesus foretold.
Red: pyrros (G4450). Used in 2 verses of the New Testament: Revelation 6:4; 12:3.
What Scripture’s uses show: Pyrros appears only twice: this horse, and “a great red dragon” (12:3). The dragon “went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (12:17). The red marks the bloodshed the dragon stirs up against those who hold the Word, not the character of the Word itself. In the Old Testament, Zechariah’s red horses were God’s messengers (Zechariah 1:8), and this rider, like the first, is given his power.
8. The Third Seal: The Black Horse
“And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.” (Revelation 6:5-6)
The balances: zygos (G2218). Used in 6 verses of the New Testament: Matthew 11:29; 11:30; Acts 15:10; Galatians 5:1; 1 Timothy 6:1; Revelation 6:5.
What Scripture’s uses show: In the New Testament, zygos elsewhere always means “yoke”: “Take my yoke upon you… For my yoke is easy” (Matthew 11:29-30). In the Old Testament, the balances are God’s instrument of judgment: “TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting” (Daniel 5:27); “Let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know mine integrity” (Job 31:6); “A just weight and balance are the LORD’s” (Proverbs 16:11). People either take Christ’s yoke, or are weighed in his balance.
Amos 8: balances, wheat, and a famine of the Word, in one chapter. The prophet Amos condemns those who sell “wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit” (Amos 8:5), and then announces the judgment: “I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD” (Amos 8:11). The third seal’s balances, wheat, and famine all appear together there, and Scripture itself names the famine as a famine of the Word.
The penny: dēnarion (G1220). Used in 15 verses of the New Testament: Matthew 18:28; 20:2; 20:9; 20:10; 20:13; 22:19; Mark 6:37; 12:15; 14:5; Luke 7:41; 10:35; 20:24; John 6:7; 12:5; Revelation 6:6.
- “he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard” (Matthew 20:2)
- “they received every man a penny” (Matthew 20:9)
What Scripture’s uses show: The dēnarion was a laborer’s wage for one day: the householder “agreed with the labourers for a penny a day” (Matthew 20:2), and at evening every worker “received every man a penny” (20:9-10). The Lord of the harvest pays those who labored in his field: “my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be” (Revelation 22:12).
”Hurt not”: adikeō (G91). Used in 24 verses of the New Testament: Matthew 20:13; Luke 10:19; Acts 7:24; 7:26; 7:27; 25:10; 25:11; 1 Corinthians 6:7; 6:8; 2 Corinthians 7:2; 7:12; Galatians 4:12; Colossians 3:25; Philemon 1:18; 2 Peter 2:13; Revelation 2:11; 6:6; 7:2; 7:3; 9:4; 9:10; 9:19; 11:5; 22:11.
- “Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny?” (Matthew 20:13)
- “Hurt not the earth… till we have sealed the servants of our God” (Revelation 7:3)
What Scripture’s uses show: In Revelation, adikeō is God’s word of protection over his own: the overcomer “shall not be hurt of the second death” (2:11); “Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God” (7:3); the locusts may harm “only those men which have not the seal of God” (9:4). And one verse joins “hurt” and “penny” exactly as Revelation 6:6 does: the vineyard parable, “Friend, I do thee no wrong [adikeō]: didst not thou agree with me for a penny?” (Matthew 20:13). It is the only other verse in the New Testament where the two words appear together. The third seal echoes the Lord of the vineyard, who pays his workers justly and does them no harm.
Black: melas (G3189). Used in 3 verses of the New Testament: Matthew 5:36; Revelation 6:5; 6:12.
What Scripture’s uses show: Melas appears only three times: a black hair (Matthew 5:36), this horse, and the sixth seal: “the sun became black as sackcloth of hair” (6:12). The black of the third seal points ahead to the great day of judgment itself. In the Old Testament, black is the color of famine (“Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine,” Lamentations 5:10), and Jude describes the end of the ungodly as “the blackness of darkness for ever” (Jude 13).
The oil and the wine. Oil pictures the Spirit (Zechariah 4’s olive trees and their oil: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit,” 4:6), and wine the covenant (“this is my blood of the new testament,” Matthew 26:28). The Good Samaritan healed with both: “pouring in oil and wine” (Luke 10:34). God protects the Spirit and the covenant, and those who hold them, while judgment proceeds.
The voice from the midst of the four beasts. That is exactly where the Lamb stands: “in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts… stood a Lamb” (5:6). The judge speaks from the heavenly court, the one who will “judge the quick and the dead” (2 Timothy 4:1), with judgment beginning “at the house of God” (1 Peter 4:17).
9. The Fourth Seal: The Pale Horse (Still Future)
“And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.” (Revelation 6:7-8)
Pale: chlōros (G5515). Used in 4 verses of the New Testament: Mark 6:39; Revelation 6:8; 8:7; 9:4.
- “the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up” (Revelation 8:7)
- “they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing” (Revelation 9:4)
What Scripture’s uses show: Chlōros means green, or the pale green of sickness and death. Outside this verse it appears only three times, and two of those are under the trumpets: “all green grass was burnt up” at the first trumpet (8:7), and the locusts may not hurt “any green thing” at the fifth trumpet (9:4). The pale horse’s color points straight to the first trumpet, which supports the reading that the fourth seal and the trumpets begin together.
Hell: hadēs (G86). Used in 10 verses of the New Testament: Matthew 11:23; 16:18; Luke 10:15; 16:23; Acts 2:27; 2:31; Revelation 1:18; 6:8; 20:13; 20:14.
What Scripture’s uses show: Hades is the grave, and every use shows it under Christ’s power: his soul was not “left in hell” (Acts 2:27, 31); “the gates of hell shall not prevail” against his church (Matthew 16:18); he holds “the keys of hell and of death” (Revelation 1:18); and at the end “death and hell were cast into the lake of fire” (20:14). Even this rider acts only because “power was given unto them.”
The four agents are the covenant curses of Leviticus 26, the chapter that follows the Jubilee law: “I will also send wild beasts among you” (26:22); “I will bring a sword upon you… I will send the pestilence among you” (26:25); “I have broken the staff of your bread” (26:26). Ezekiel gathers the same four as God’s “four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence” (Ezekiel 14:21). (The Greek Old Testament often uses thanatos, “death,” for pestilence, which is why Revelation’s list matches Ezekiel’s.)
The sword of judgment: rhomphaia (G4501). Used in 7 verses of the New Testament: Luke 2:35; Revelation 1:16; 2:12; 2:16; 6:8; 19:15; 19:21.
What Scripture’s uses show: This sword is a different word from the second seal’s. Rhomphaia is Revelation’s word for the sword from Christ’s mouth: “out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword” (1:16; 2:12, 16), “that with it he should smite the nations” (19:15), and “the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth” (19:21). The second seal’s machaira sends the Word out; the fourth seal’s rhomphaia carries judgment out.
The fourth part: measured judgment. The fourth seal strikes a fourth of the earth; the trumpets strike a third (8:7-12); the seven last plagues strike all who refuse God (16:2). Judgment grows in stages, and each stage is a warning before the next.
Why it has not happened yet. A fourth of the earth, with more than eight billion people alive today, would be over two billion people, far more than any war, famine, or plague in history has ever killed. Nothing like it has happened. And Scripture says why the earth has been spared so far: it is not to be hurt “till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads” (7:3).
(The word for “beasts” here, thēria, is the same word used for the beasts of Revelation 13. It may carry a double meaning, literal wild beasts and the persecuting powers of the end; that is offered as a possibility, not a conclusion.)
10. The Pattern Across the Four
| White | Red | Black | Pale | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Called by | The lion | The calf | The face of a man | The flying eagle |
| Carries | A victor’s crown (stephanos) | The sword of the Word (machaira) | The balances (zygos) | The sword of judgment (rhomphaia) |
| Stage | The gospel goes out | Division and persecution follow | Judgment and reward | Judgment carried out on a fourth of the earth |
| Time | Recent history, continuing | Recent history, continuing | Recent history, continuing | Still future |
The four horsemen follow the order of Jesus’ own warnings: the gospel first (Mark 13:10), then division and persecution (Matthew 10:34-36; 24:9), then judgment. And through all four, the same truths hold: the Lamb opens every seal, every rider acts only by what is given, the horses are God’s Spirit sent into all the earth, and God protects what belongs to him.
11. Other Readings, Stated Fairly
Many scholars read the first rider as a counterfeit, an antichrist figure imitating Christ, because the other three horsemen bring disaster, and because “was given” is also used for evil powers (“it was given unto him to make war with the saints,” 13:7). In answer: white never marks evil in Revelation, the victor’s crown belongs to Christ and his people throughout the book, “overcome” is Christ’s own word, and Zechariah’s horses are God’s messengers.
Most commentators read the red horse as war in general, and the black horse as economic famine (a day’s wage buying only a day’s grain, while oil and wine are spared). This paper’s reading is more specific: the strife that follows the Word going out, and the judgment of the heavenly court. It rests on the words themselves: the machaira of Ephesians 6:17, the “sword” of Matthew 10:34, the sphazō of 6:9, the balances of Daniel 5:27, the penny of Matthew 20, and Amos 8:11’s famine of the Word. The two readings need not exclude each other: war, persecution, and famine are all part of what the Word’s coming has stirred in a resisting world.
12. When Did the Seals Open?
The Continuous Jubilee Calendar can only date what Scripture measures. The seventy weeks, the 1,260 years, and the 1,335 days all have numbers. The first three seals do not: Scripture gives them no measured length, and names no event that opens them. So the calendar can fix their boundaries, but not their exact years:
- They open after the 1,260 years end, because “the judgment shall sit” only after the “time and times and the dividing of time” (Daniel 7:25-26).
- They continue until the sixth seal, the Second Coming, when the saints are “caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).
- The fourth seal is still future, and the three before it are still running.
History since 1798 fits the first three seals closely. The modern missionary and Bible movement carried the Scriptures to nations that had never had them: William Carey sailed for India in 1793, the British and Foreign Bible Society was founded in 1804, and the American Bible Society in 1816. Opposition followed: papal letters condemned the Bible societies, including Pope Gregory XVI’s encyclical Inter praecipuas (1844); missionaries and many thousands of Chinese Christians were killed in the Boxer Uprising (1900); over a million Armenian Christians died in the genocide of 1915–1923; communist governments banned Bibles and imprisoned believers; and organizations that track persecution estimate that hundreds of millions of Christians still live under severe pressure today. (These identifications are my interpretation; Scripture does not name them.)
13. What This Paper Shows
Scripture states: the heavenly court follows the time, times, and dividing of time (Daniel 7:25-26); the Lamb opens every seal; every rider acts by what is given; and the words of the seals (crown, sword, balances, penny, “hurt not”) carry the meanings Scripture gives them elsewhere.
The pattern: the four faces fit the four horsemen, and the four horsemen follow the order of Jesus’ own warnings.
Interpretation: that the first three seals opened after 1798 and are still running, the identification of historical events with each seal, and that the fourth seal is still future. These are offered as my best understanding, held to Rule 1.
Through it all, the theme of Revelation holds from the first seal to the last: God is on the throne, the Lamb is in control, and his Spirit goes forth into all the earth. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6).
Sources and References
Scripture: all quotations are from the King James Version (KJV). Greek word numbers are from James Strong, Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. The lists of New Testament uses were compiled from the Greek New Testament (the SBL edition, as tagged by the MorphGNT project); the Greek text behind the King James Version differs from it in a few places, such as Revelation 8:13, noted where it matters.
Larry W. Wilson: Wake Up America Seminars, for the ordering of the seals, trumpets, and bowls, including the fourth seal beginning with the trumpets, and Rule Four of apocalyptic prophecy.
Continuous Jubilee Calendar: Welsh, Chip. The CJC Research Kit and the CJC papers The Five Exoduses and The Jubilee Calendar and the Story of the End, available at https://greysmokez.github.io/CJC-Website/