Revelation 6: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

John watches the Lamb open the first six of the seven seals on the scroll. The first four seals send out riders on white, red, black, and pale horses, bringing conquest, war and famine, and then death, with authority over a fourth of the earth. The fifth seal shows the souls of those killed for God's word crying out for justice and being told to wait a little longer. The sixth seal brings an earthquake and violent changes in the sky, and people of every rank hide in the rocks from the one on the throne and from the Lamb.

Claim by Claim

1. 6:1
   • John saw the Lamb open one of the seals
   • John heard one of the four living creatures speak
   • The creature's voice was like the noise of thunder
   • The creature said, Come and see
2. 6:2
   • John looked and saw a white horse
   • The one sitting on the white horse had a bow
   • A crown was given to the rider
   • The rider went out conquering and in order to conquer
3. 6:3
   • The Lamb opened the second seal
   • John heard the second living creature say, Come and see
4. 6:4
   • Another horse went out, and it was red
   • Power was given to the one sitting on that horse to take peace from the earth
   • The purpose was that people should kill one another
   • A great sword was given to that rider
5. 6:5
   • The Lamb opened the third seal
   • John heard the third living creature say, Come and see
   • John looked and saw a black horse
   • The one sitting on the black horse had a balance scale in his hand
6. 6:6
   • John heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures
   • The voice said a measure of wheat costs a denarius
   • The voice said three measures of barley cost a denarius
   • The voice commanded not to harm the oil and the wine
7. 6:7
   • The Lamb opened the fourth seal
   • John heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, Come and see
8. 6:8
   • John looked and saw a pale horse
   • The name of the one sitting on it was Death
   • Hades followed with him
   • Authority was given to them over the fourth part of the earth
   • They were given authority to kill with the sword
   • They were given authority to kill with famine
   • They were given authority to kill with death
   • They were given authority to kill by the beasts of the earth
9. 6:9
   • The Lamb opened the fifth seal
   • John saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered
   • They had been slaughtered because of the word of God
   • They had been slaughtered because of the testimony they held
10. 6:10
    • The souls cried out with a loud voice
    • They asked how long until the Master, holy and true, judges and avenges their blood
    • They addressed him as holy
    • They addressed him as true
    • They asked for vengeance on those who dwell on the earth
11. 6:11
    • A white robe was given to each one of them
    • They were told to rest yet a little while
    • They were to rest until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers was completed
    • Those fellow servants and brothers were about to be killed as they themselves had been
12. 6:12
    • John saw the Lamb open the sixth seal
    • A great earthquake happened
    • The sun became black like sackcloth of hair
    • The whole moon became like blood
13. 6:13
    • The stars of heaven fell to the earth
    • They fell as a fig tree drops its unripe figs
    • The fig tree drops them when shaken by a mighty wind
14. 6:14
    • The heaven was parted away like a scroll being rolled up
    • Every mountain was moved out of its place
    • Every island was moved out of its place
15. 6:15
    • The kings of the earth hid themselves
    • The great men hid themselves
    • The rich men hid themselves
    • The chief captains hid themselves
    • The mighty men hid themselves
    • Every slave and every free man hid themselves
    • They hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains
16. 6:16
    • They said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us
    • They said to the mountains and rocks, Hide us from the face of the one sitting on the throne
    • They asked to be hidden from the wrath of the Lamb
17. 6:17
    • They said the great day of his wrath has come
    • They asked who is able to stand

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

6:1

A scroll was a long strip of papyrus rolled up; a closed document was fastened with blobs of wax or clay stamped with a seal, and only the one with the right to open it could break them. This scroll, introduced in the previous chapter, is fastened with seven. The KJV's "four beasts" is not a word for animals: the Greek means living ones, the four winged creatures around the throne described in chapter 4. Manuscripts differ here, some read simply "Come," a summons to the rider; others read "Come and see," addressed to John.

6:2

The Greek word behind "crown" is stephanos, the wreath awarded to the winner of a race or a battle, not the jeweled diadem of a king. The bow marks the rider as a mounted archer; to readers in the Roman east the obvious picture was the Parthian cavalry beyond the empire's eastern frontier, famous for fighting with the bow from horseback and the one enemy Rome had never subdued.

6:4

"Power was given" renders a Greek word meaning authority or permission, and the phrasing is passive: this is something granted to the rider, not something he takes. The same construction governs the riders in verses 2 and 8. The "great sword" is a machaira, the short heavy blade worn at the side and used for butchering and for killing at close quarters, rather than the long sword of the battle line.

6:5

"A pair of balances" is a set of scales: a beam with a pan hanging from each end. Grain was normally sold by the scoop and bought in bulk. Weighing it out carefully on a balance was what sellers did when it was scarce and had to be doled out in exact portions.

6:6

The "measure" is a choinix, roughly a quart, the standard single day's grain ration for one working man. The "penny" is a denarius, the standard day's wage for a common laborer. So a full day's pay buys exactly one day's bread for one person, with nothing left over for a family or for anything else; ordinary prices were something like eight to twelve times cheaper. Barley was the coarser, cheaper grain, eaten by the poor and fed to animals, which is why three quarts of it cost the same as one of wheat. Olive oil and wine were everyday staples in that diet, not luxuries.

6:8

"Pale" translates chloros, the yellow green of growing plants and also the color of a corpse. "Hell" in the KJV here is Hades, the Greek name for the place of the dead in general, where everyone who dies goes, not the place of final punishment; the KJV uses the one English word for both ideas. In the list of killers, "death" is the same Greek word used in the Greek Old Testament for plague or pestilence, which is the sense here, since otherwise the item would repeat the whole sentence.

6:9

In Israelite sacrifice the blood of the animal was poured out at the base of the altar, so the life of a sacrifice was understood to be under the altar. That is the picture behind where John sees these people. "Souls" translates psyche, which covers the life, the breath, the self, and so simply means the people themselves, now dead.

6:10

"Avenge our blood" is courtroom language rather than a call for private revenge: the Greek asks for the legal verdict and sentence owed to murderers. Under Israelite law blood that had been shed had a claim on justice that could not simply be dropped. "How long, O Lord" is the standard opening line of a lament in the Psalms, a fixed form of complaint rather than an ordinary question.

6:11

"A little season" means a short period of time; "season" in 1611 English meant simply a while, with no reference to summer or winter. "Should be fulfilled" means filled up or completed, that is, until their number is full.

6:12

Sackcloth was a coarse dark cloth woven from goat hair, used for grain sacks and worn next to the skin as a sign of mourning; it is a dull blackish brown, which is why a darkened sun looks like it. A sun turned black and a moon turned the color of blood are stock phrases from the older prophets for the day when God acts in judgment (Joel 2:31, Isaiah 13:10).

6:13

"Untimely figs" means figs out of season: the small hard green fruit that forms on a fig tree in winter and drops before it ever ripens. A strong wind brings the whole crop of them down at once.

6:14

A scroll held open is under tension, and when the reader lets go, both ends snap back toward the middle and it is shut in an instant. That speed is the point of the comparison. The image comes from Isaiah 34:4.

6:15

The six groups run from the top of society to the bottom. "Great men" are the magnates and nobles; "chief captains" translates chiliarchos, a Roman officer commanding a thousand soldiers, a senior rank roughly like a colonel; "mighty men" are the strong and powerful; a "bondman" is a slave, someone owned by another, as opposed to a free man.

6:16

This quotes Hosea 10:8, where people facing invasion beg the hills to bury them, preferring to be crushed than to be found. "Wrath" is simply anger.

6:17

The manuscripts differ between "his wrath" and "their wrath," the latter taking the one on the throne and the Lamb together as the source, and the reading cannot be settled with certainty. "Stand" means to keep one's footing and survive, the picture of someone left standing when a verdict is handed down or when a battle line breaks.