4. THE FOURTH SEAL OPENED Revelation 6:7-8 7 And when he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, Come.--See notes on verse 1. 8 And I saw, and behold, a pale horse: and he that sat upon him, his name was Death; --Here, as in the other three seals, the horse appears, indicating that the idea of war is still in the symbols. But the imagery is changed. The rider is no longer in the form of a person, carrying some implements, but Death, personified, is said to be seated on the horse. Death represented as a tyrant reigning is a figure of speech found in other books of the Bible. (Romans 5:14; Romans 6:9; 1 Corinthians 15:55.) The emblem shows Death as a soldier gaining great victories over all efforts at resistance that man might make. The term "pale" applied to the horse probably was intended to represent the color of a body in death. All this would show the power of death over men, and the effect it would have on the empire, and on the church because it was at that time under the Roman dominion. and Hades followed with him.--Hades literally means the "unseen" and applies to the place of the dead. The idea seems to be that so many would die that even the place of the dead would appear to be before John in the emblem. Or that Hades would follow to take those who had been killed. And there was given unto them authority over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with famine, and with death, and by the wild beasts of the earth.--Authority was given "unto them"--that is, to Death and Hades. This means that Death would have a broad sway--many would die --and they would pass to the intermediate state. Commentators interpret the "fourth part" as meaning a considerable or great number, or in all quarters of the Roman Empire, or that it was not to be universal. The first seems the more likely, for definite numbers are often used for an indefinite amount, and it is not at all probable that exactly one-fourth part would be affected. The "earth," doubtless, meant the territory governed by the Romans. The remainder of the verse tells the means by which Death, ruling as an emperor, would reach so many. To "kill with sword" would include those who would die in murders and assassinations as well as wars. Others would die in famines. This is different from the third seal where the symbol showed only a scarcity of food. Another statement is that they would be killed "with death." Since Death, personified, is represented as riding the horse, the word "death" here probably has a different meaning. To kill with death is at least an awkward expression. The margin says pestilence. The meaning is that plagues of various kinds would destroy many. It is immaterial whether the expression "wild beasts" be understood literally or as referring to the insatiable, bloodthirsty tyrants that would murder without mercy. In sections infested with wild beasts, they would become more dangerous when the country had been despoiled by war and famines. The point is that great numbers would be killed through the various means mentioned. As suggested regarding the third seal, it is doubtless unnecessary to limit the application of this vision to the reign of any one emperor. From A.D. 192 to 284 has already been alluded to as a period of internal strife in the Roman Empire. As the third vision seems to fit the time of Caracalla, A.D. 211-217, so this vision will harmonize with the period of Gallienus, A.D. 260-268, as a time in which events most strikingly fit the requirements of the symbol. Gibbon declares that the empire at that time was attacked on every side by the "blind fury of foreign invaders, and the wild ambition of domestic usurpers." He also says: "But the whole period was one uninterrupted series of confusion and calamity." (Decline and Fall, Vol. I, p. 299.) One more quotation from Gibbon will suffice. He said: "But a long and general famine was a calamity of a more serious kind. It was the inevitable consequence of rapine and oppression which extirpated the produce of the present, and the hope of the future harvests. . . . Other causes must, however, have contributed to the furious plague, which, from the year two hundred and fifty to the year two hundred and sixty-five, raged without interruption to every province, every city, and almost every family, of the Roman Empire. During some time five thousand persons died daily in Rome; and many towns, that had escaped the hands of the barbarians, were entirely depopulated." (Ibid., p. 329.) If inspiration had intended to describe that period, no symbol, it seems, could have been better suited to the purpose than that revealed by the fourth seal. The probability is that it was at least included in what the symbol was intended to represent. If the reigns of Caracalla and Gallienus are not the periods to fulfill the third and fourth symbols, it must be that some other periods in that general age of the world did; the lessons would be the same even if the exact periods and events are not definitely located. These two are suggested as possessing a high degree of probability. As already mentioned regarding the third seal, the fourth indicates results that follow devastating warfare, and the language would fit any such period of time. But the seals' place in the record shows the probability of their closely following the second seal--the time of internal strife in the Roman Empire. If that is true, the suggestion made in this paragraph is doubtless correct.