Revelation 6

And as the Lamb, that is, Christ, opened the first seal, which closed the first roll, I looked, and the first of those four living creatures called aloud to me, or in such a kind of voice as is wont to come out of thunder, when a voice is heard from heaven, (see note on Acts ix. 6,) saying, Come and see, or, Here is a more full relation and prediction of those things which Christ had foretold concerning the Jews, Matt. xxiv, (set down here in this chapter in gross, and more particularly, as they have their execution, in the following chapters.)

[a] 4. kill one another] The great intestine broils among the Jews, those especially of the seditious and the zealots, are at large set down by Josephus, l. 4. and l. 5. De Bel. Jud.; so great, saith he, that Vespasian on purpose deferred the siege of Jerusalem, that they might more easily be destroyed by their own than by the Romans’ swords: see Luke xxi. 10. Thus about the twelfth of Nero, when Florus crucified (beside great multitudes of the ordinary sort) μυρίους ὅσους παρὰ Ἰουδαίοις τετιμημένων, saith Eusebius out of Josephus, many myriads of the most honourable among the Jews, there was, saith he, first in Cæsaren, then in all Syria, such a disorder, and δεινὴ ταραχὴ, terrible tumult, of those that dwelt in the country against those that inhabited the cities, invading and laying them waste in a most hostile manner, that one might see whole cities full of unburied carcasses, old men and children thrown dead together, women shamelessly uncovered, καὶ τὴν πᾶσαν ἐπαρχίαν μεστὴν ἀδιηγητῶν συμφορῶν, the whole province full of inexpressible calamities. And the observation is once for all, Eccl. Hist. l. 2. c. 6, that στάσεις καὶ πόλεμοι καὶ κακῶν ἐπάλληλοι μηχανάι, seditions, and wars, and mischievous projects one upon the neck of another, never left the city and all Judæa, till at last the siege came upon them. And at that very time when it came, three factions there were on foot among them, under three commanders, Eleazar, John, and Simon. And though Tacitus say that the approach of their enemy gave them peace one with another; yet Josephus, that was an eyewitness, relates it much otherwise, only that the three factions, εἰς δύο μοίρας περισταται, were divided into two, by the oppression of the third, John upon the day of unleavened bread sending some into the temple, under pretence of sacrificing, which killed Eleazar and butchered his party, and seized upon the temple, where before Eleazar and his zealots had fortified themselves. And however, though the seditious joined a while to repel the enemy, yet they soon returned to their former feuds, and one faction fighting against the other, the weight and smart of both fell upon the commonalty, who were plundered by each of them. More of these civil combustions, and the fearful effects of them, we read of most notably in the time of the siege; when the scarcity began to pinch the besieged, then the στασιασταὶ broke into all houses, tormented the possessors to bring out their provision. “When mothers”, saith he, “snatched victuals out of their babes’ mouths, in came the seditious, and snatched it out of theirs, and catching up the children which held fast the bits in their mouths, and would not let them go, they dashed them against the ground.” Those that, to prevent them, eat up what they had before they could come to them, they used with most horrid cruelties, ὡς ἀδικηθέντες, taking themselves to be injured by them who thus robbed them of their prey. And those that were ready to die through the famine, they would yet search more strictly, μὴ ὑπὸ κόλπον ἔχων τροφὴν σκήπτοιτο τὸν θάνατον, lest they should have some food in their bosom, and only make as if they were famished, when they were not; and then, δεινὰ βασάνων ὁδοὶ πρὸς ἔρευναν τροφῆς, horrible ways of torment did they use to find out food. And so true is that which is

a Ensch. l. 3. c. c. out of Josephus.

Revelation 6:2

And as I looked, methought I saw a white horse, and one sitting thereon, that is, an angel representing Jesus Christ (see ch. xix. 11.) now in another posture than that in which he had been, ch. v.

Revelation 6:4

And I looked and saw another horse red, or of blood-colour, and an angel (as minister of God’s judgments) sat upon him; and of him it was told me, that he had power given him to embroil the land of Judaea (see ch. vii. 1. 9.) with war, thereby to pour out a great deal of blood; and to that purpose methought he had a sword put into his hand, a presignification of the slaughters that should be committed by the Jews one upon another: (see Matt. xxiv. 7.)

Revelation 6:5

And when he opened the third seal, which had the third roll under it, the third of the living creatures called to me to come and see what was in that roll; and it was a third horse, black and foul to look on; and by that was signified a sore famine, (which discolours the skin of men, and makes them look black and sad and dismal;) and to signify this, he that was on this horse’s back, the angel that was executioner of this judgment, had a balance in his hand to weigh corn, (as it is usual in time of scarcity or approaching famine, when bread is distributed out to every one by weight, no more than is thought necessary to life.)

Revelation 6:6

There he was a lamb slain, now he is a king riding in pomp, (the white horse noting his glory;) but this a spiritual king, the horse that he rides on being mystically the gospel, in respect of the purity and gloriousness or divinity of its doctrine. And this horseman or prince, the Lord Christ, had a bow in his hand, that is, menaces and terrors held out against his enemies, before they be really inflicted on them, as the bow is first held in the hand, then the arrow prepared upon the string, before it be shot out at them; and he had a crown given to him, as to one now instated and installed in his royal office; and his business at the present was that which was primarily proper to the white horse, the gospel, to be the power of God to salvation to them that believe, to convert the Jews to the faith, and so to conquer and melt his crucifiers; and then for the future (as the gospel is by consequence the savour of death unto death) to bring down or destroy the obdurate, (these two being generally the ways of Christ’s conquering in this book:) and as the Jews, so, after, the Romans, by converting some and destroying others, conquering and breaking the infidelity of some, and then bringing down and destroying the impenitent.

And from the midst of the four living creatures there proceeded a voice, as the prediction of some prophet, saying, The scarcity of corn is such, that the price of a man’s day labour will buy no more than is wont to be thought sufficient for a man’s food for a day; and if he eat that all himself, there is nothing left to provide for wife and children, much less for clothes for all of them; and so in proportion the price of barley; such scarcity there is of the necessaries of life for men and cattle: whereas of oil and wine (of which there is no necessity, the first might wholly be spared, and is of no use in such times of extreme dearth, and the want of the other might competently be supplied by water) there was store enough: the scarcity was to fall heavy upon the necessaries of life, but not on the superfluities; which is an expression of the heaviness, not lightness or supportableness of it.

[b] A measure of wheat for a penny] Chænix is not any set measure, but hath often varied in several times, saith Waserus, Ant. Mens. I. 2. c. 3, and doth ordinarily signify that proportion of wheat which will be sufficient for one man’s food for a day. So δηνάριος is, it seems by the Gospel, Matt. xx. 2, the wages of a day’s labour. And then the meaning of a chænix for a penny is, that a man’s day’s labour shall but bring him in as much bread as he daily wanteth, all other necessaries for him, and even bread for his whole family, being wanting; for the chænix was but the proportion for one person. This signifies the beginning of a famine, the dearness of corn, as will be discerned if it be compared with the difference that is among us between the day-wages of a labourer, and the quantity of bread which is necessary for him; two pence in bread being thought largely sufficient for a single man’s food, when yet his ordinary wages is five or six times as much: by which may be guessed the meaning of a chænix of wheat for a denary, viz. two pennyworth of bread (perhaps less) sold for a shilling, or every thing six times as dear as ordinary. And so this whole verse, and the rider of the black horse, with the balance in his hand, is an emblem of dearth beginning, though not yet rioting upon them, and so is most proper to be applied to the famines in Judæa, foretold by Christ, Matt. xxiv. 7, which yet were none of them comparable with those horrible straits of famine which befell them afterward in the siege, &c. See note [a].

Revelation 6:7

And upon the opening of the fourth seal, wherewith the fourth roll was sealed up, the fourth living

³ living creature. ⁴ land, γῆs: see Premon., and note [b] Matt. xxiv, and note [a] Rev. vii. ⁵ living creature. ⁶ living creatures. ⁷ A quart. ⁸ injure not, μὴ ἀδικήσῃς.

Revelation 6:8

And it was a pale horse, and a rider thereon, signifying great death or mortality, whether by extraordinary ways of death, the sword and famine, or by that ordinary, known way of pestilence, following (as ordinarily it doth) upon those two, and sweeping away many. And these three horses in the three last rolls, that is, sword, famine, and death or pestilence, (all named together in this matter, Matt. xxiv. 7,) should destroy the fourth part of the land of Judæa, men and beasts, or else should make such a vastation, that the wild beasts should increase and be too strong for the inhabitants there. (And all this but a forerunner of the far greater destructions that should afterwards be wrought among them at the siege of Titus.) 9, 10. And upon the opening of the fifth seal, I saw in the lower part of the sanctuary, beneath the altar of incense, the souls of the martyrs (see ch. vii. 9. 14.) that had been slain by the Jews for their constant preaching of Christ, and this blood of theirs, like that of Abel, called to Christ, as a righteous and faithful Judge, for judgment upon those wicked men, who were guilty of all the blood of all the prophets, (Matt. xxiii. 35,) even as far as to Christ himself and his apostles, and other Christians afterwards, whom they persecuted also, and caused many to be put to death, Luke xxi. 12.

[c] Death, and Hell followed] By Death here, and Hades (or ἀφα-

HAMMOND, ANNOT. VOL. II. N B

[d] unto them] The αὐτοῖς, them, here in the plural seems to signify the three last horses and their riders, and so to denote sword and famine and pestilence, the same that was mentioned by Christ, Matt. xxiv. 7, as the beginnings of their sorrow, or pangs of a far heavier travail, which after followed: and so no doubt there was a completion of it in such a degree as is here spoken of, that is, ἐπὶ τὸ τέταρτον τῆς γῆς, upon the fourth part of the land; whether that signify to the destroying one tetrarchy or fourth part of the nation, (as it is certain it fell very heavy upon Galilee,) or whether to the destroying very many in several parts of the nation, so that not all, but only a fourth part of the nation were thus visited by these destructions. This latter will seem the most probable, if it be applied peculiarly to that point of time which is parallel to the beginnings of sorrow, Matt. xxiv. And then the ὑπὸ τῶν θηρίων, by the beasts, if that be the right reading, will signify the prevailing of the beasts of the field, as a token and effect of a vastation in those places, where the sword and famine and pestilence had made such havock, that is, in that fourth part of the land. But the king’s MS. reads not ὑπὸ τῶν θηρίων, by the beasts, but τὸ τέταρτον τῶν θηρίων, the fourth part of beasts, answerable to the fourth part of the earth precedent; and then the meaning will be, that this destruction fell upon the cattle as well as men, as either in war or famine or pestilence it is wont to do. This hath thus far been said on supposition that what is described here belongs to the beginnings of sorrows, and not the bitter pangs themselves. As for those, they were far more sharp and wasting, and infinitely above this proportion. The story is full of them. At the passover, (to shew the just judgments of God in avenging on them the death of his Son, at that very time wherein they crucified him,) no less than 300,000, which came up to that feast out of all Judæa, were shut up in Jerusalem, as in a prison, in that close siege of the Romans, which made the famine so soon to rage most furiously; and this whole number, being but a small proportion to the infinite multitude more of those which were in the city before, (for by Cestius’s computation of the 255,000 and 600 sacrifices offered at one passover, at the rate of ten persons to one sacrifice, the number will be near ten times as great as this now named, besides the unclean that were excluded the sacrifice,) were all, one and other, destroyed either by the famine, or by the seditious and turbulent among themselves,

Revelation 6:9

[e] under the altar] Θυσιαστήριον here, and ch. viii. 3. must signify the altar of incense, (called θυσιαστήριον τοῦ θυμιάματος, Luke i. 11, but properly θυμιατήριον,) not of burnt-sacrifice, the whole place here represented from ch. iv. being the sanctuary within the vail, where this altar of incense stood, that other of the burnt-sacrifice standing without in the court, (see note [i] on Matt. xxiii.) and so it is clear by the mention of incense, ch. viii. 3. To which purpose may be observed what we find in *Theophylact, that the word θυμιατήριον was used peculiarly for that censer which the chief priest once a year carried with incense into the holy of holies, and that the standing altar in the sanctuary was called θυσιαστήριον. And therefore ὑποκάτω τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου must not be rendered under the altar, (as they that conceive it the altar of burnt-sacrifice conceive also that the souls of the martyrs do here lie at the foot of the altar, where the blood, which is the life of living creatures, is wont to be poured out,) but in the lower part of the sanctuary, beneath the altar of incense. Of this word, see more in note [a] on ch. xi. As for the souls of those that were slain, by that phrase is signified their blood, (as the soul and the life is all one, and the blood is the life, Gen. ix. 4,) and the blood of the slain is the effusion of their blood, (as the blood of Abel,) the sin of murdering them. The same is after expressed by ἰσφαγμένοι, those that were slain; for of them in the masculine gender, and not of the ψυχαί in the feminine, it is said, ἔκραζον λέγοντες, they cried, saying, How long, &c. All which signifies no more but the sin of slaying the Christians, and the vengeance that in justice from God, and by the promise of Christ, was due to it. And the whole passage seems to allude to 2 Esdr. iv. 35, where the souls of the righteous ask in their chambers, saying, How long, &c. and the answer is, (as here,) By measure hath he measured the times, &c., and, he doth not stir them till the said measure be fulfilled; and ch. xv. 8, Behold, the innocent and righteous blood crieth unto me, and the souls of the just complain continually, and therefore saith the Lord, I will surely

• Jos. de Bell. Jud. l. 6. c. 8, &c. * See Euseb. l. 3. c. 5. * On Heb. ix. 7. N. 2

Revelation 6:11

And this crying of their blood for instant justice was at the present answered with giving them white robes, acknowledgments of their constancy and perseverance in suffering, and consequently a present state of blissful reward: this revenge of their blood being for a while, for some few years, deferred, till all the bloodguiltiness of these Jews should be filled up, all the other martyrs slain, James, the bishop of Jerusalem, &c., and then should the vengeance come on these impenitent, obdurate persecutors: (see ch. vii. 9, 10, &c.)

Revelation 6:12

And at the opening of the sixth seal, in that roll there was a representation of eclipses of sun and moon, &c. figuratively to express great destructions, Ezek. xxxii. 7, Isaiah xiii. 20, Joel ii. 10. and 31, and ch. iii. 15.

⁹ living creature. ¹⁰ hades followeth, ὁ ἅγις ἀκολοθεῖ. ¹¹ to kill upon the fourth

part of the land, ἀποκτεῖναι ἐπὶ τὸ τέταρτον τῆς γῆς. ¹² by, ὑπὸ, or, the fourth part of the

beasts: so the King’s MS. τὸ τέταρτον τῶν θηρίων. ¹³ beneath. ¹⁴ they had had,

ἐξαν. ¹⁵ the land, τῆς γῆς.

[f] great earthquake] Of the great earthquakes (in divers places, saith St. Luke) which were both in Asia and at Rome, see Eusebius in Chronico, in the time of Nero, and Baronius, An. Chr. 68. Neronis 12, and so also of the eclipse of the sun; and of a star or comet like a sword, that stood over the city, and continued a year, and of a great light, that shined about the altar and the temple at nine of the night, upon the feast of unleavened bread, for half an hour together, and of meteors that were seen through all the region, and of an apparition in the clouds of chariots and troops of armed men encompassing the city, and many the like; see Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. l. 3. c. η’, who calls them ἑναργὴ καὶ προσημείνοντα μιλλουσαν ἑρμίων τέρατα, and τὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ κηρύγματα, prodigies manifestly foresignifying the approaching desolation, and sermons as it were of God himself, which is the meaning of the σημεῖον, the sign of the Son of man appearing in heaven. Matt. xxiv. 30. And among these meteors, the falling stars that are here described, ver. 13, would go for no great rarity. But Arethas mentions some of the ancients, who interpret this earthquake here tropologically of Vespasian’s siege of Jerusalem; and so it may well be understood, and by analogy all the rest also. See note [g].

[g] the sun became black] That the blackness of the sun, and bloodiness of the moon, and the falling of stars from heaven upon the ground, have a literal interpretation, of which they are capable, so as to note prodigies in the heavens, eclipses and meteors, &c. there is no doubt. But yet here they are sure brought to signify something else. For if these words be compared with Matt. xxiv. 29, to which they are perfectly parallel, it will appear that they are not a setting down the prodigies before the siege of Jerusalem, but that (that being set down, ver. 15) the darkening of the sun, &c. is μετὰ, after that tribulation, or pressure. All the question is, whether these here be only a general representation of slaughters and bloodshedding, which (because when they are excessive they may cause clouds and meteors in the air) are by some thought to be so expressed ordinarily in the prophets, or whether they may not signify the falling of these judgments upon the civil and ecclesiastical state represented by sun and moon, and the whole multitude of that people signified by the stars of heaven. And the latter of these seems the more probable, (see note [n] on Matt. xxiv.) for thus in the prophets of the Old Testament it is ordinary, as when we read, for the iniquity of the people is the land darkened, and the like, that is, the glory and lustre of it destroyed. An eminent example, directly parallel to this, we have Isai. xxxiv. 4, All the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll, and all their host shall fall down as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and the falling fig from the fig-tree; and my sword shall be bathed in heaven. And all this but a representation of God’s judgments upon Idumæa, as in the

Revelation 6:15

[h] the kings of the earth] That this prophecy belongs to the Jews, hath been cleared by other evidences, and accordingly, βασιλεῖς τῆς γῆς must be translated, the kings of the land, and signify in this place those that had or assumed to themselves the greatest authority among them, and not in any stricter sense kings, or heads of the people: for that notion is not applicable to any that were at Jerusalem at this point of time, to which this vision refers, (see note [i]). And proportionably must the μεγιστάνες, great men, denote the principal that were then in the city. And then the χιλίαρχοι are the commanders or officers in their armies, the leaders of the several factions, as will appear note [i], (being elsewhere used for Roman officers of their militia). And then the rich men, the bond-man, and the free-man, make up all that were in Jerusalem at this time, expressed, as it is the fashion of the scripture, by the several sorts of them.

[i] hid themselves in the dens] This hiding themselves in dens, or caves, is an expression of a great fear and consternation, and the thing that was foretold by St. Luke, xxi. 26, Men despairing for fear, and for the expectation of the things that were a coming on that people, and this there immediately attending the Gentiles’ treading down of Jerusalem, ver. 24. This makes it not so fit to apply it to their flying to the mountains, which was before the siege, or to those fears that were produced by the prodigies, the forerunners of the destruction, such as the φωνὴ ἀθρόα, the promiscuous noise or voice, Μεταβαίνωμεν ἐντεῦθεν, Let us remove thence, which was generally thought to signify the departure of God from the temple, adytis arisque relictis, for this still was before the destruction: but the passage to which this most punctually relates is that in the very time of destroying the city by Titus. For when the temple was burnt, and the priests hanged up, and upon an affront offered to Titus, (refusing to relieve, or take quarter from him,) the soldiers were permitted to plunder and fire all; the στασιασταί, or seditious, go to the βασιλικὴ αὐλή, or palace, where many had laid up their wealth, drive out the Romans thence, kill eight thousand of them, four thousand Jews that had gotten thither for shelter, plunder the place, and the whole lower city, and then εἰς τὴν ἄνω πόλιν ἐχώρουν, retired to the upper city, Sion, the best fortified place, and there planted themselves. For the taking of this, Titus was fain to use engines of battery, and to that end to cast up works. And having done so, as soon as ever a piece of the wall was beaten down, of a sudden a strange fright and consternation took them, some crying out that the whole wall on the west was demolished, others that the Romans were entered, others that they saw them in the towers; and such a change followed in the minds of all their leaders, or τύραννοι, parallel to the βασιλεῖς and δυνατοὶ and χιλίαρχοι, kings and mighty men and commanders here, that they that were just now in the greatest pride and rage, and contempt of their enemies, and by the deceits of false prophets suborned by them, endeavoured to make all confident that they should have success, now

Revelation 6:16

[k] wrath of the Lamb] The anger of the Lamb, and the great