Revelation 6:5,6

Revelation 6:5-6. The third horse is black, the colour of mourning and of famine (Jeremiah 4:28; Jeremiah 8:21; Jeremiah 14:2; Malachi 3:14, margin; Revelation 6:12), and he comes forth with his rider in answer to the same cry as before, Come. Again Jesus comes in this seal just as He had come in the first and second seals, although no more than in these is the rider Jesus Himself. The judgment of this seal is famine. The rider has a pair of balances in his hand in order to weigh the corn. The usual method of dealing out corn was to measure it: here it is to be weighed, not measured, and the mention of the ‘measure' in the following words is simply to give us a proper idea of the quantity weighed out. The symbol is one of great scarcity (Ezekiel 4:16; comp. Leviticus 26:26-28).

A voice, or rather as it were a voice, is then heard in the midst of the four living creatures, a voice, therefore, which can only come from the throne of God, saying, A measure of wheat, etc. The ‘measure' referred to was considered to be the amount needed for the daily support of one man. The penny, nearly nine-pence of our money, was the wage of a complete day's work (Matthew 20:2), and sufficed in ordinary circumstances to purchase about eight ‘measures.' The meaning is, that so great would be the scarcity that a man, by working a whole day, would be able to purchase with his earnings no more than an eighth part of what he could purchase at the same price in ordinary times, or than would be sufficient for the necessity of his own life, to say nothing either of his many other wants, or of the wants of his family. He might indeed obtain three measures of barley for the same sum; but to be obliged to depend upon barley was itself a token of severe scarcity. The scarcity is produced by the rider's ‘hurting' the wheat and the barley. The words next addressed to him, therefore, and the oil and the wine hurt thou not, mean in the first instance that he is not to carry this hurting to an unreasonable extent. ‘The tendency of the voice is to check or limit the agency of the rider on the black horse, and to provide that, notwithstanding his errand, sustenance shall not utterly fail.' Yet it is not enough to say this. We are persuaded that the meaning lies much deeper. ‘Oil' and ‘wine' are not to be regarded only as the privilege of the rich; and thus the symbol cannot be one of the mocking contrast between an abundance of luxuries and a famine of the necessaries of life. In Eastern lands ‘oil and wine' are as needful to the poor as to the rich (comp. Deuteronomy 15:14; Luke 7:46). But to all, both rich and poor, they were symbols not so much of the ordinary provision for existence as of feasting and joy (Psalms 23:5). Their preservation, therefore, neither means only on the one hand, that a certain check shall be put upon the ravages of a famine by which all are to be overtaken, nor, on the other hand, that the misery to come shall be aggravated by the fact of luxuries being untouched while the necessary aliment of life fails. The symbol seems to point in an entirely different direction, and to show that He who restrains the power of famine does this with especial reference to that joy of life which is the portion of His people. While the world suffers He preserves them. The plague does not come nigh their dwelling. For His elect's sake God spares those things which are the expression of their joy. ‘Except those days had been shortened, no flesh would have been saved; but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened' (Matthew 24:22). The interpretation now given derives confirmation from the use of the verb ‘hurt' in chap. Revelation 7:3, ‘Hurt not,' that is, do not execute judgment upon ‘the earth.' We learn now where the people of God were during these times of trial. We heard nothing of them under the second seal, but they were safe; and, with the usual climax of thought running through this book, we hear under the third seal, speaking on their behalf, the voice of Him who is their unfailing Guardian and Friend. Now they are more than safe. They can say, ‘Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over' (Psalms 23:5).