Revelation 6:7,8 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature Like an eagle, toward the north; say, Come and see Receive a further discovery of the divine will. And I looked, and behold a pale horse Suitable to pale death, his rider. By death, in the Hebrew, we are frequently to understand the pestilence. See Jeremiah 9:21; Jeremiah 18:21; and Sir 39:29. And many other instances might be produced. And hell Or hades, rather, representing the state of separate souls, followed with him. And power was given unto them Namely, to death and hades. Or if we read, with Bengelius, αυτω, the expression is, Power was given to him, namely, to death; over the fourth part of the earth That is, a very considerable part of the heathen Roman empire: to kill By the several judgments of God here mentioned; with sword That is, with war; with hunger Or famine; with death Or the pestilence; and with the beasts of the earth These are called the four sore judgments of God, in the style of ancient prophecy. See Ezekiel 14:21; Ezekiel 33:27. The meaning is, That the sword and famine, which were judgments of the foregoing seals, are continued in this, and the pestilence is added to them. Accordingly, says Lowman, we find all these judgments in a very remarkable manner in this part of history, that is, in the reigns of Maximin, Decius, Gallus, Volusian, and Valerian, beginning after Severus, about the year 211, to A.D. 270. Thus also Bishop Newton; who observes, This period commences with Maximin, who was an emperor from the north, being born of barbarous parents in a village of Thrace. He was indeed a barbarian in all respects; an historian affirming that there was not a more cruel animal upon the earth. The history of his, and several succeeding reigns, is full of wars and murders, mutinies of soldiers, invasions of foreign armies, rebellions of subjects, and deaths of princes. There were more than twenty emperors in the space of fifty years, and all, or most of them, died in war, or were murdered by their own soldiers and subjects. Besides lawful emperors, there were, in the reign of Gallienus, thirty usurpers, who set up in different parts of the empire, and came all to violent and miserable ends. Here was sufficient employment for the sword; and such wars and devastations must necessarily produce a famine, and the famine is another distinguishing calamity of this period. In the reign of Gallus, the Scythians made such incursions, that not one nation, subject to the Romans, was left unwasted by them; and every unwalled town, and most of the walled cities, were taken by them. In the reign of Probus also there was a great famine throughout the world; and for want of victuals, the army mutinied and slew him. A usual consequence of famine is the pestilence, which is the third distinguishing calamity of this period. According to Zonaras, it arose from Ethiopia, while Gallus and Volusian were emperors, pervaded all the Roman provinces, and for fifteen years together incredibly exhausted them; and the learned Lipsius declares, that he never read of any greater plague, for the space of time that it lasted, or of land that it overspread. Zozimus also, speaking of the devastations of the Scythians before mentioned, further adds, that the pestilence, not less pernicious than war, destroyed whatever was left of human kind, and made such havoc as it had never done in former times. Many other historians, and other authors quoted by Bishop Newton, bear the same testimony; among whom Eutropius affirms, that the reign of Gallus and Volusian was remarkable only for the pestilence and diseases. And Trebellius Pollio attests, that in the reign of Gallienus the pestilence was so great, that five thousand men died in one day. Now when countries thus lie uncultivated, uninhabited, and unfrequented, the wild beasts usually multiply, and come into the towns to devour men, which is the fourth distinguishing calamity of this period. This would appear a probable consequence of the former calamities, if history had recorded nothing. But Julius Capitolinus, in his account of the younger Maximin, p. 150, informs us that five hundred wolves together entered into a city, which was deserted by its inhabitants, where this Maximin chanced to be. The colour of the pale horse, therefore, is very suitable to the mortality of this period; and the proclamation for death and destruction is fitly made by a creature like an eagle, that watches for carcasses. This period the bishop considers as continuing from Maximin to Dioclesian, about fifty years.