Revelation 6:1

The command or invitation ἔρχου is not addressed to Christ (as Revelation 22:17; Revelation 22:20). If addressed to the seer, it is abbreviated from the ordinary rabbinic phrase (ueni et uide) used to excite attention and introduce the explanation of any mystery. The immediate sequel (omitted only in Revelation 6:4), καὶ εἶδον, does not, however, forbid the reference of ἔρχου to the mounted figures; hearing the summons, John looked to see its meaning and result. The panorama of these four dragoons (“ad significandum iter properum cum potentia”) is partly sketched from Semitic folk-lore, where apparitions of horsemen (cf. 2Ma 3:25, etc.: “the Beduins always granted me that none living had seen the angel visions … the meleika are seen in the air like horsemen, tilting to and fro,” Doughty, Arab. Deserta, i. 449) have been a frequent omen of the end (cf. Jos. Bell. vi. 5; Sib. Or. iii. 796), partly reproduced from (Persian elements in) Zechariah 1:7 f., Revelation 6:1-8, in order to bring out the disasters (cf. Jeremiah 14:12; Jeremiah 21:7) prior to the last day. The direct sources of 6. and 9. lie in Leviticus 26:19-26; Ezekiel 33:27; Ezekiel 34:28 f., and Sir 39:29-3 (“fire and hail and famine and θάνατος, all these are created for vengeance; teeth of wild beasts and scorpions and serpents and a sword taking vengeance on the impious to destroy them”). An astral background, in connection with the seven tables of destiny in Babylonian mythology, each of which was dedicated to a planet of a special colour, has been conjectured by Renan (472); cf. Chwolson's Die Ssabier, iii. 658, 671, 676 f. For other efforts to associate these horsemen with the winds or the planets, see Jeremias (pp. 24 f.) and M.W. Müller in Zeitr. f. d. neutest. Wiss. (1907), 290 316. But the proofs are fanciful and vague, though they converge upon the view that the colours of the steeds at least had originally some planetary significance. The series, as usual, is divided into the first four and the second three members. The general contents of Revelation 6:1-8 denote various but not successive phases of woe (only too familiar to inhabitants of the Eastern provinces) which were to befall the empire and the East during the military convulsions of the final strife between Rome and Parthia. The “primum omen,” for John as for Vergil, is a white horse, ridden by an archer.