reply to post by TheRedneck
I too, have read the Book of Revelation, and I must always compel myself to remember who John was writing to, his world, and why. The opening of the
first seal must portray a period or events nearest to the time of John, while the seventh seal must relate to the remotest events.
I would suggest that many of the seals and trumpets at the time of writing were futuristic, and by now, many are already fulfilled. I have heard this
rider of the white horse to mean Christ victorious, the spread of the Gospel, and any number of meanings, but they would not account for the other
horses and provide any continuity.
One thing about prophecy is that the symbols used must be consistent. We can't cherry pick and really force a stretch to make them fit.
Since the horse was never used by Jews as a beast of burden, and instead a symbol of war, it must represent war. Four horses, four colors, four
different symbols to represent four different circumstances. Therefore, these must be secular symbols, not spiritual changes.
I see the white horse as symbolic of victorious of war, The rider, his arms, his garland crown of victory, and the horse indicating a conquering force
or conquering age. The Persian empire was represented by a Ram, Macedon a goat, but Roman empire by a white horse.
John was on Patmos in AD 96, the same year Domitian was slain. Nerva, a Cretan, a land of bowmen, began his reign which was one of great expansion
and prosperity. His adopted son Trajan's incessant wars were a string of victories, and almost daily, the Senate was astonished to hear of new
victories and new expansions.
Rome reached its greatest apex of power and prosperity under Domitian.
The second horse was Red. Blood red. The horse being the symbol of war is no longer the triumphant color of white, but red, suggesting a change of
fortune, one drenched in blood. The earth as John described was the Roman Empire, or the Earth that dominated his existence. Peace was to be taken
away for 92 years. This period of the Roman Empire was dominated by constant civil strife, torn by bloody conquests between rivals for power. During
that period thirty-two emperors, and twenty-seven pretenders alternately hurled each other from the throne by incessant civil warfare. "to whom was
given a great sword, and the power to take away peace, that men should kill one another."
I would suggest that in the history of the world, no such prolonged period of civil war was carried out, and no greater example of correspondence
between this vision and events of history can be made.
The Black Horse, still a symbol of war would indicate calamitous war, filled with sorrow, mourning, and despair. It is not easy to define a sharp
difference between the Red, Black, and Pale horses, and the results of the Red horse bleeds into the Black and caused much of the scarcity, and the
scarcity caused disease and so on.
There is a period of extreme taxation, extreme prices, greate scarcity, want and famine, due to the destruction of armies and the untilled fields
during a period of civil war of the preceeding 92 years. Ther is first the civil war as a cause, and second the scarcity and famine as the effect.
The Pale Horse. Still a time of war, but this is the bloodless color of the dead. Do we find scarcity, want, hunger, pestilence and disease in the
latter portion of the civil war commotion?
The tenth chapter of the first volume of Gibbon's Rome details a condition whch existed in the reign of Gallienus, as the 92 years were drawing to a
close about 268 AD. The wheels had fallen completely off the Roman civilization. Famine, plague, scarcity, and unwholesome food resulted in from 250
- 265 AD, famine and epidemical diseases raged without interruption in every Roman province, every city, and almost every family. During that time,
some 5,000 citizens in Rome died every day, and many of the towns that had escaped the Barbarians , were entirely depopulated. Half the people of
Alexandria had perished. Gibbon also relates the scourge of ravenous wild beasts which had quickly multiplied from the depopulations of the great
provinces.
But, what do I know.
[edit on 20-11-2008 by dooper]