And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.
Ver. 4. That was red] Portending troubles and tragedies, bloody wars and terrible persecutions. Those ten first were so cruel, that St Jerome writes in one of his epistles that for every day in the year were murdered 5000, except the first day of January.
To him that sat thereon] Christ,Matthew 10:34; Zechariah 1:8. He stands over his Church as the Agonothetes. a So he did at St Stephen's martyrdom, Acts 7:55. He moderates and overrules the enemy's cruelty.
And that they should kill one another] viz. The persecutors should rise up and destroy one another, as the Romans did the Jews, and the Jews the Romans in various provinces. And as the emperors, who got nothing (most of them) by their adoption or designation to the empire, nisi ut citius interficerentur, but to be cut off the sooner. (Tacit.) All or most of the persecuting Caesars died unnatural deaths.
A great sword] That of the gospel, Ephesians 6:17, which takes away peace, by accident, Matthew 24:6. Christ threateneth the contempt of the gospel with wars and rumours of wars. Our late Edgehill battle was fought in the vale of Red Horse; as if God had meant to say, "I have now sent you the red horse, to avenge the quarrel of the white."
a A superintendent or director of the great public games of Greece. ŒD