Revelation 6 Study Notes

6:1-8:1 Some interpreters believe that the description of the unsealing of the scroll (5:1) is the beginning of the tribulation period. However, the scroll in the Lamb’s hand (5:7) is not open for viewing until all seven seals have been removed. Six of the seals are removed in chap. 6. The two scenes in chap. 7 (vv. 1-8,9-17) form an interlude prior to the removal of the seventh seal (8:1). Extensive parallelism exists between this section and Jesus’s Olivet Discourse (Mt 24:4-14) describing “the beginning of labor pains” (a woman’s early or false labor). If both passages refer to the same events and timing, it appears that the “unsealing” sequence in Rv 6:1-8:1 occurs before the tribulation period.

6:1-8 The lifting of the first four seals is portrayed in this section as four horsemen, an image likely drawn from Zch 1:7-11, though the colors of the horses are different. There is debate about whether any, or all, of what is pictured here has already taken place. However, no catastrophe has devastated a fourth of the earth since the time this prophecy was given (Rv 6:8).

6:1,3,5,7 It appears that the command Come! from each of the four living creatures sets in motion the dramatic effects unleashed by removing each of the seals.

6:2 Some have taken the rider here as a description of Christ because of its similarity to him at the second coming (19:11). Given the context, this rider symbolizes destructive conquest followed by war, famine, and death. The word for crown (Gk stephanos) differs from the many crowns (Gk diademata) of Jesus in Rv 19:12.

6:4 The description here strongly parallels Mt 24:6-7, with “wars and rumors of wars” and nations and kingdoms rising up against one another.

6:5-6 The apparent descriptions of famine conditions here would naturally follow the state of war portrayed in vv. 2,4. A quart of wheat or barley was enough food for a person for one day. Thus, the greatly inflated cost of these necessities indicates a severe drought, though oil and wine are plentiful.

6:8 Hades was popularly known as the grave and resting place after Death (see note at 20:11-15). The text does not say that a fourth of the population of the earth was killed, but only that authority was given to “Death” and “Hades” over this proportion of the world, allowing them to kill freely.

6:9-11 The phrase under the altar and the mention of blood recall the sacrificial blood poured at the base of the altar in Ex 29:12. The souls of those who had been slaughtered may refer to believers killed during the removal of the first four seals (6:2,4,8) or generally to “the blood of prophets and saints, and of all those slaughtered on the earth” (18:24). Their being killed because of the word of God and their testimony for Christ is the same reason given for John’s imprisonment on the island of Patmos (1:9). Since the “hour of testing” (i.e., the tribulation period; 3:10) is focused on the “earth dwellers,” the delay here (rest a little while longer) implies the “hour of testing” has not yet begun. The Lord’s just vengeance (Rm 12:19) for the martyrs begins in earnest in Rv 16:4-7 and is not completed until 19:2. On white robe, see note at 3:4-5. It is not known when the number of their fellow martyrs is completed.

6:12-17 The effects when the sixth seal is lifted from the scroll (sun turned black and moon became like blood) are very similar to those in Jl 2:28-31, which are said to occur just before the day of the Lord (Jl 2:31). This is the same as the great day of the wrath of God the Father and the Lamb (vv. 16-17; Zph 1:14-15). Some think this is the time of the second coming of Christ because of the similarity in wording between certain aspects of the sixth seal and Mt 24:29-31. Because the identical Greek word and form for come is used in regard to the prophecy in Jd 14, which has a futuristic meaning, it is best to translate it here as “the great day of their wrath is (about to) come.” The question and who is able to stand? is answered in chap. 7.