Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Revelation 6:4

καὶ ἐξῆλθεν. א reads καὶ ἴδον, καὶ ἰδοὺ ἐξῆλθεν.

ἐδόθη αὐτῷ. אcA omit αὐτῷ.

σφάξουσιν with AC 36; Text. Rec[235] reads σφάξωσιν with אB2P 1 &c.

[235] Rec. Textus Receptus as printed by Scrivener.

4. ἐδόθη αὐτῷ: see crit. note and on Revelation 2:7.

τὴν εἰρήνην. This may mean merely “peace in general,” “peace in the abstract,” but may also stand for “the peace” which the conquests of the previous Rider have left as their fruit.

ἵνα�. This is the first instance of the future with ἵνα, which illiterate “barbarians” would think as natural as the future with ὄπως. The MSS. are never unanimous: the editors are by no means always unanimous, nor is it possible, on the hypothesis that the writer conforms fitfully to the common construction, ever to be quite sure whether the MSS. which represent the “regular” or the “irregular” construction are right. No MS. has the “irregular” construction in all the places where it commends itself to a majority of editors. Moreover most of the forms which mark the future or the subjunctive are liable to be confounded with one another. A possible theory is that in this Book ἵνα with the future indicative corresponds to ἵνα with the subjunctive in ordinary Greek, while ἵνα with the subjunctive aorist (which is much commoner than the present) corresponds to ἵνα with the optative. As for the sense, some understand this of civil war exclusively: and such wars have indeed most of the character of war as indicated under this seal. But its full meaning perhaps includes all wars, so far as they are aimless blood-shedding, not painful steps towards human progress. Here we can agree almost entirely with the “continuous historical” interpreters, who see the fulfilment of these four seals in the reigns of the “five good emperors,” when Trajan carried imperial conquest to its utmost height; in the civil wars and mutinies during and after the age of the Severi; in the famines that followed; and in the general distress that made the Barbarian conquest possible. Only we need not regard their meaning as exhausted in the fifth century (much less in the third). We may see e.g. the contrast of the two first seals in the Crusades compared with the religious wars of the Reformation: in the conquests of the French Republic and Empire, compared with the Red and the White Terror, and the mutual crimes of the Holy Alliance and the Carbonari: even in our own country, in a comparison of the reigns of Edward III. and Henry V. with those of their respective successors, or of Elizabeth’s with Charles I.’s: while again the civil war of the latter was noble and fruitful compared with the Dutch war of his son.

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Revelation 6:4

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