Revelation 9:17

Here only the writer refers to his “vision”. ἔχοντας (horse and rider regarded as one figure: in the Persian heavy cavalry horses as well as men were clad in bright plate) κ. τ. λ., “they wore coats of mail, the colour of fire and jacinth and brimstone,” i.e., gleaming red, dark blue, and yellow, unless ὑακ. (a favourite Oriental military colour) is meant to denote the colour of dull smoke. Plutarch, in his life of Sulla, describes the Medes and Scythians with their πυροειδῆ καὶ φοβερὰν ὄψιν (cf. Sir 48:9). πῦρ, κ. τ. λ., like Job's leviathan, Ovid's bulls (Metam. vii. 104), or Diomede's horses (Lucret. ver 29, cf. Aen. vii. 281). They are also as destructive as Joel's locusts. The description is a blend of observation and fantastic popular beliefs. Brimstone was a. traditional trait of divine wrath among people who “associated the ozonic smell which often bo perceptibly accompanies lightning discharges with the presence of sulphur”( E. Bi. 611). The symbolism is coloured by actual Parthian invasions (cf. Revelation 6:1 f.) and by passage s like Sap. 11:18 where God punishes men by sending “unknown, newly-created wild beasts full of rage, breathing out a fiery blast or snorting out noisome smoke or flashing dread sparkles from their eyes.” Mr. Bent recalls the curious superstition of the modern Therans, who during the eruptions of last century saw “in the pillars of smoke issuing from their volcano, giants and horsemen and terrible beasts”.