The Fourth Seal (Part 2)

Sword, famine, death and beasts, oh my!

Audio Version!

And when he opened the fourth seal, I heard a sound from the fourth living creature saying, “Come.” And I looked, and behold, a horse—a green one—and the one sitting, above him was a name for him: Death, and Hades was following with him, and it was granted to him authority upon the fourth of the earth to kill with sword and with famine and with death and by the beasts of the earth. Revelation 6:7–8

The Fourth Seal Part One was the easy part.

The meaning of the second half has been much more difficult to unravel—I’ve spent hours upon hours, a few sleepless nights, and a few hikes mulling every word over and again.

But I will say that every moment spent contemplating the Word of God is a moment full of delight, of communion with the living God, and ultimately of found treasure in the words being puzzled and ruminated over.

And when that treasure is seen and rummaged through and ultimately understood, the tears of joy are irreplaceable.

I specifically refer to the end of verse 8: it was granted to him authority upon the fourth of the earth to kill with sword and with famine and with death and by the beasts of the earth.

This is a good literal translation of the standard Greek texts, but with one difference. All but four of the English translations have “to them,” but I translate with the well attested “to him.” I state my reasons later in the Observations on the Greek Text for paid subscribers, but all of you will get why.

In The Fourth Seal, Part One, I argued that Jesus was the rider on the green horse, that Jesus took on the name Death/death, and that as the rider he stormed Hades/Sheol and returned in the resurrection represented by the Green Horse and brought Hades/Sheol with him.

The next phrase in the verse is parallel with the first two seals: “it was given to him.”

And what follows those words is also somewhat parallel.

Let’s compare:

6:2 There was given to him a bow and he went out conquering and to conquer.

6:4 There was given to him to take peace from the earth, namely that they slay one another, and there was given to him a great sword.

6:8 There was given to him authority upon the fourth of the earth to kill with sword and with hunger and with death and by the beasts of the earth.

If you’ve followed what I’ve said about the seals so far, you know that Jesus was the rider on each horse and that the “violence” was actually the salvific work of Jesus in the incarnation and by his death on the cross (see SALVATION is DEATH).

This insight is the key to understanding the final part of 6:8.

Here is my thesis:

“To kill with sword and with hunger and with death and by the beasts of the earth” was Jesus’s reversal of the curses for disobedience in the Old Testament for the remnant of those who placed their faith in Jesus.

[A spoiler alert: the saints under the altar in the fifth seal are “the fourth of the earth” impacted by the fourth seal.]

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The Standard Line

As usual, most interpreters see this phrase as a partial judgment on the world being implemented by a personified, almost deified, Death, either in the Jewish War, sometime in the Roman Empire, in the future tribulation, or as a general condition of humanity.

This view is consistent with the identification of the riders as the Anti-Christ or Satan—and in the case of the Fourth Seal, Death.

In this account, God/Jesus allowed the Beast or Satan or Death to carry out violent judgment on the earth in preparation for Jesus’s triumphant return (as one commentator put it “God willed the other side to show its colors”).

If you have followed In Plain Sight, you know I have taken a very different approach: Jesus who opened the seals was the rider on all four horses, and the visions of each seal interpret one or more aspects of Jesus’s saving actions in the world.

In the phrase we are looking at, the standard approach is much easier—the violence of sword, famine, death and beasts seems impossible to square with the gracious actions of Jesus.

Sword, hunger, death, and beasts in the Old Testament

To prove their perspective, commentators often cite the litany of Old Testament passages that contain three or all four of the terms sword, hunger, death and beasts of the earth.

For them, these are judgments against the wicked and indicate the Great Tribulation (past, present or future depending on who the interpreter is).

Here is the list of passages containing three or all four of these terms:

Deuteronomy 32:23–25; Jeremiah 14:12; 15:3; 21:9; 24:10; 27:8, 13; 29:17–18; 32:24, 36; 38:2; 42:17, 22; 43:11; 44:13; Ezekiel 5:16-17; 6:11; 12:16; 14:21.

Many translations have “pestilence” (Hebrew deber) for “death” in these passages. The Greek Old Testament regularly translates it as thanatos, “death.”

While many commentators point out the parallel, what they don’t ask is who perpetrated these disastrous actions in the Old Testament.

The answer: Yahweh.

In every single passage, Yahweh was either the direct instigator of these disasters or directed another entity (like Babylon) to implement them against his own people!!

In Deuteronomy 32:23–25, Yahweh promised this curse if the people disobeyed:

“And I will heap disasters upon them;

I will spend my arrows on them;

they shall be wasted with hunger,

and devoured by plague

and poisonous pestilence;

I will send the teeth of beasts against them,

with the venom of things that crawl in the dust.

Outdoors the sword shall bereave,

and indoors terror,

for young man and woman alike,

the nursing child with the man of gray hairs.”

Then Yahweh reiterated these curses upon Judah for their disobedience through the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel as seen in the passages listed.

But most interpreters of the Fourth Seal put Death in the place of Yahweh as the instigator of these curses. Personified Death in essence becomes a type of god—and in Greek and Roman mythology Death and Hades were gods. Death itself replaced God—or God authorized Death as a divine power.

But that is not how John saw it.

At the most, John saw Death in the same way as Paul.

Death was an impersonal power that held sway over humanity as a result of sin. Remove sin, remove death.

Paul in his chapter on the resurrection said this: “Death is swallowed in victory, O Death, where is your victory, O Death where is your sting” 1 Corinthians 15:55.

The Fourth Seal with the image of the rider on the green horse with a name death above and Hades following (and in parallel with the conquering rider on the white horse) is the visionary version of Paul’s poetic obituary to Death.

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Reversal of the curse

But how could the quartet of sword, famine, death and beasts of the earth be construed as anything but negative?

It starts of all places in one of the passages listed above. In Ezekiel 14:21–22, not only are all four elements listed, but the reversal of the curse is envisioned:

For thus says the Lord GOD: How much more when I send upon Jerusalem my four disastrous acts of judgment, sword, famine, wild beasts, and pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast! But behold, some survivors will be left in it, sons and daughters who will be brought out; behold, when they come out to you, and you see their ways and their deeds, you will be consoled for the disaster that I have brought upon Jerusalem, for all that I have brought upon it.

Here in Revelation 6:8, that remnant—“some survivors”— was represented by “the fourth of the earth.”

As I set out in the post SALVATION is DEATH, we see Jesus given the authority to kill (aka: deliver or “save”) those who die with Christ—those who die to the world of sin and death.

Or as I put it in that post: “Just as Jesus was physically slain on the cross (by the hand of men but in the purpose and foreknowledge of God), the gospel spiritually “slays” us, and our death is followed by resurrection to eternal life.”

As the One who has conquered Death, and now bears the name Death, Jesus “kills” the remnant (the fourth of the earth) with “sword and hunger and death and the beasts of the earth” as spiritual counterparts that reversed the physical curses that Yahweh promised the disobedient in the Old Testament.

Once again metaphor comes into play.

Each of the four elements represent a metaphorical reversal of the curses for disobedience:

1. We have already encountered the sword multiple times—from the mouth of the exalted Jesus and the sword given to the rider of the red horse (and later Jesus on the white horse of Revelation 19). As I argued in those places, the sword is the gospel that pierces hearts, just like the arrows from the bow in the First Seal.

In this case Christ the rider of the Green Horse, kills with the sword of the gospel.

2. Famine or hunger is the spiritual result of the sword. Those pierced realize their poverty (Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of God) and long for the deliverance of the gospel (Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied).

3. Death is Salvation. The third element represents the conversion of those pierced with the gospel and who recognize their need. By faith, they die to the world and are raised with Christ. SALVATION is DEATH!!

4. The beasts of the earth are the counterpart of Christian perseverance. Those who have died with Christ have nothing to fear from anything the world brings at them, whether from humans, from beasts, from war, or from disaster. None of this matters because the believer is already dead in Christ!

“By”(Greek hypo) the beasts of the earth is different from the “with” (Greek en) of the first three. “By” suggests the allowance of God for us to continue encountering the pain of the world while we are still in it, but we now have everything we need to carry on in victory. Or again as the Beatitudes state: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.”

These four elements are not mutually exclusive, but form a train and likely a progression: with sword and with hunger and with death and by the beasts of the earth. “Or” would present four alternative ways of killing, but the “ands” join them together in one process or progression.

The entire process of salvation is envisioned in these metaphors!

As for so much in Revelation thus far and so much to come, the Old Testament plays a huge role in unlocking the symbolism in these visions. In this case, the gospel of the New Testament is the antidote to the curse of the Law (Galatians 3!).

The metaphorical imagery (yet spiritually literal!) demands that we search not just the surface but dive into the depths of John’s visionary perceptions.

Looking forward

The way is now paved to understand the final three seals. For the most part, interpreters have totally divorced the fifth, sixth and seventh seals from the first four. There seems to be no connection. How come the fifth seal moves from disastrous judgment (as the standard interpretations say) to the martyrs under the altar who have died? Why do people in the first sixth seal not die, but those in chapter 7 in the presence of God have died?

These questions are difficult to answer with the standard interpretation.

But not if SALVATION is DEATH.

Stay tuned!

Observations on the Greek Text of Revelation

Literal (interlinear) Translation: