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universal kingdom of the Beast a necessity, and a welcome proposition to the war-worn
nations, for their cry will be, "Who is able to make war with him?" One of the features
of the Antichrist is a false peace; the many false christs that precede him are accompanied
with wars and rumours of wars.
Following in natural sequence we have the black horse. Desire for conquest, then war,
then famine; how true this order has always been. The rider of this horse holds neither a
bow nor a great sword, he holds a balance in his hand. Black denotes famine in scripture
symbolism.
"Their visage is blacker than coal. . . . they that be slain by the sword are better than
they that be slain with hunger; for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits
of the field."
"We get our bread with the peril of our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness.
Our skins were black like an oven because of the terrible famine" (Lam. 4: 8, 9; 5: 9, 10).
The balance indicates the need of scrupulous care because of famine. When Ezekiel
foreshadowed the siege of Jerusalem he had to eat his meat "by weight", and his water he
had to drink "by measure" (Ezek. 4: 9-11; see also verse 16 and 12: 16-19). This is an
expression in direct contrast with "eat and be full" of Deut. 6: 11, etc. The extent and
nature of the famine is indicated by the words, "one choenix of wheat for a denarius, and
three choenixes of barley for a denarius." A denarius was a day's wage (Matt. 20: 2, 9),
and a choenix was nearly a quart. Numerous citations from Greek writers show that this
measure was the daily ration of a slave. An attic medimnus of grain cost five or six
denari. A choenix was the 48th part of a medimnus and cost one-eighth of a denarius.
Here therefore is a statement of famine prices. The daily food advanced to 800 percent.
The command also to injure not the oil and the wine indicates that extreme care must be
taken with these by reason of the great shortage of the staff of life.
The fourth horse is described as pale. The word chlõros means a colour like that of a
young shoot of vegetation, i.e., a palish green; evidently a hue inclining to the cadaverous
is here meant (Moses Stuart, in loco.). The name of the rider is given, ho thanatos,
"death", and in immediate association comes hades. Christ by virtue of His redemption
claims the keys of death and hades. When the dead are raised to stand before the great
white throne, we read, "death and hades gave up the dead which were in them", and
finally, "death and hades were cast into the lake of fire" (20: 13, 14). Both death and
hades are spoken of as having a dominion. These forces and authorities of darkness are
given a dreadful liberty of action in the closing days of the age.
"And there was given to him authority over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with the
sword, and with famine, and with death, and by the wild beasts of the earth."
To kill by "death" is a figure, a figure indicating pestilence and plague, death in its
most awful form. The Septuagint renders the Hebrew word for pestilence by thanatos
("death") more than 30 times and so enables us to see the meaning of the word here.
We have in these four horsemen and their followers a series of symbols, setting forth
the sign of the sunteleia of the age, the "beginning of sorrows". War, famine, pestilence,