The Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse

Chapter Four: Interpretation

Prophetic interpretation

Many Christians interpret the horsemen as a prophecy of a future Tribulation,[8] in which many will die. The Four Horsemen are the first in a series of "Seal" judgements. This is when God will judge the Earth, and is giving the World a chance to repent before they die. (Most of the world will die at this point, the population will go by fourths. First a fourth will die, then a fourth of the remaining three fourths, etc.)

Preterist interpretation

Most modern scholars interpret Revelation from a preterist point of view, arguing that its prophecy and imagery apply only to the events of the first century of Christian history. In this school of thought, Conquest, the white horse's rider, is sometimes identified as a symbol of Parthian forces: Conquest carries a bow, and the Parthian Empire was at that time known for its mounted warriors and their skill with bow and arrow. Parthians were also particularly associated with white horses. Some scholars specifically point to Vologases I, a Parthian shah who clashed with the Roman Empire and won one significant battle in 62 AD.

Revelation's historical context may also influence the depiction of the black horse and its rider, Famine. In 92 AD, the Roman emperor Domitian attempted to curb excessive growth of grapevines and encourage grain cultivation instead, but there was major popular backlash against this effort, and it was abandoned. Famine's mission to make wheat and barley scarce but "hurt not the oil and the wine" could be an allusion to this episode. The red horse and its rider, who take peace from the earth, might represent the prevalence of civil strife at the time Revelation was written; internecine conflict ran rampant in the Roman Empire during and just prior to the 1st century AD.

Each new century, Christian interpreters see ways in which the horsemen, and Revelation in general, speaks to contemporary events. Some who believe Revelation applies to modern times can interpret the horses based on various ways their colors are used. Red, for example, often represents Communism, the white horse and rider with a crown representing Catholicism, Black has been used as a symbol of Capitalism, while Green represents the rise of Islam. Pastor Irvin Baxter Jr. of Endtime Ministries espouses such a belief.

Some equate the four horsemen with the angels of the four winds. (For more Info, search Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel, as they were the angels often associated with four cardinal directions)

Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death

This interpretation replaces Conquest with Pestilence (i.e. infectious disease), and is used as the basis for many uses of the Four Horsemen concept in popular culture. In Brian Stableford's The A to Z of Fantasy Literature, for example, the Horsemen are listed as Famine, Pestilence, War, and Death.

The origins and justification of the name "Pestilence" as a distinct Horseman are unclear, though some translations of the Bible do mention "plague" (e.g. the NIV) or "pestilence" (e.g. the RSV) in connection with the Pale horse..

Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, in his 1916 novel The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (filmed in 1921 and in 1962), provides an early example of this interpretation, writing "The horseman on the white horse was clad in a showy and barbarous attire. While his horse continued galloping, he was bending his bow in order to spread pestilence abroad. At his back swung the brass quiver filled with poisoned arrows, containing the germs of all diseases."