Verse 8 The symbol of ruin and destruction. That these visions of the four horses accompanying the opening of the first four seals are intended, severally, to denote invasion, slaughter, famine, and destruction, as above explained, is clear; and it is probable that they are designed to prefigure the onset of these calamities in a general sense. Various attempts have been made by different commentators to give to each one an application to some particular event in history, but without much success; for, during several centuries after these predictions were recorded, perpetual storms of war, pestilence, and famine, ravaged the world; and there seems to be nothing to limit the application of the visions to any specific cases. Hence every independent commentator, who has attempted a limitation, has varied from the others in the selection of events to which he supposes the symbols to refer.