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Echoes of Revelation
Revelation never quotes the Old Testament outright, yet no New Testament book refers to it more. See both texts side by side, why they don’t match, and what John does with them.
Revelation 6:2-8, four horses of four colors
The four horsemen are built on Zechariah's horses and chariots, sent out from God's presence to range over the earth, now sent to judge it.
Revelation 6:2-8, in every translation this tool compares.
A director can reshoot an old classic with the same cast of characters and a darker ending. Zechariah saw horses of different colors that God sent out to patrol the earth. Later he saw four chariots pulled by red, black, white and dappled horses. John sees four horses, white, red, black and pale, each called out as the Lamb breaks a seal. The colors and the sending come from Zechariah. The riders now bring war, hunger and death.
Four horses marked by color, sent out from God's presence to cover the whole earth. Three colors match in Greek: white (leukos), red (pyrros) and black (melas). In Zechariah 6:5 the teams are the four winds of heaven that go out after standing before the Lord.
Zechariah sees groups of horses in chapter 1 and four chariot teams in chapter 6. John sees four single horses with riders. His fourth color is pale green (chloros), where Zechariah has dappled or spotted. In Zechariah the horses patrol and report. In John each rider carries out a judgment. Beale says the change from teams to riders matters little, since John could infer riders in the chariots.
In Zechariah the patrol finds the nations at ease while Jerusalem suffers, and God promises to act against them. John turns the patrol into the action. The Lamb opens each seal, a living creature calls, and a rider goes out. Beale reads it as Christ ruling over the disasters of history, using them to test his people and to judge their persecutors.
Not a code in which each color names a nation or a year. Beale reads the colors as pictures of the plague each rider brings, and Heiser declines to spend time matching every color to Zechariah's.
Beale calls Zechariah 6:1-8, with 1:8-15, the most obvious background, and says the colors in both books are almost identical. In the Greek of Zechariah 6:2-3 the teams are pyrroi, melanes, leukoi and poikiloi psaroi; 1:8 has pyrroi, psaroi, poikiloi and leukoi. Revelation has leukos, pyrros, melas and chloros. Zechariah 6:5 calls the teams the four winds of heaven, which Beale takes as one reason John has four. He reads the colors as metaphors: white for conquest, red for bloodshed, black for famine, pale green for death. Targum Zechariah 6 made the horsemen the evil angels of Daniel's four kingdoms, which Beale uses to argue that all four riders are evil powers under Christ's control. Keener, the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, the ESV Study Bible, the CSB Study Bible, the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible and Wright all point to Zechariah 1 and 6. Walton notes that Zechariah 6 calls the teams spirits, the same word as winds. The grade is drawn here: a scene of colored horses sent out over the earth can hardly come from anywhere else.
Heiser calls Zechariah 6:1-8, looped back to Zechariah 1, the most obvious source, and refuses to spend an episode reconciling each color. He draws four points. The figure among the myrtles may be the angel of Yahweh. The horsemen go out from God's throne in the council scene of chapters 4-5. The four horses cover the four corners of the earth. And chariots were weapons of war, so judgment is already present in Zechariah, where the teams go out against nations oppressing God's people. He links this to the angel of Yahweh as destroyer at Passover and concludes that here the Lamb is the destroying judge.
Commentators differ on the first rider. Beale lists those who see Christ or the gospel (Psalm 45 and Revelation 19:11) and those who see a satanic imitator, and sides with the second. Keener, the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible and the ESV Study Bible point to the Parthian archers. Wright takes him as the conquering kings of the earth. MacArthur reads the riders as forces, not persons: the first brings a false and short peace, led by false messiahs and ending in the Antichrist, won by agreement and not by war. On the sequence, Beale argues the four plagues run at the same time, not one after another; the CSB Study Bible notes the parallel with the Olivet Discourse and places the seals before the tribulation. MacArthur places every seal inside a tribulation still to come, starting with the first.
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- G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary), comment on 6:1-8, Old Testament Background, and on 6:2
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 6:1-8
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Revelation 6:1-8 and 6:2
- ESV Study Bible, notes on Revelation 6:1-8 and 6:1-2
- CSB Study Bible, notes on Revelation 6:1-8 and 6:2, and cross-references at Revelation 6:2-5
- NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible, note on Revelation 6:2-8
- N. T. Wright, Revelation for Everyone, comment on Revelation 6:1-8
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament, on Zechariah 1:7-17 and 6:1-5
- Septuagint, Zechariah 1:8 and 6:2-5, Interlinear Greek-English Septuagint
- SBL Greek New Testament (MorphGNT), Revelation 6:2-8
- Michael S. Heiser, Revelation 6: The Opening of the First Six Seals, video lecture (Naked Bible Revelation series)
- John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on Revelation 6:1 and 6:2
