What Does Revelation 6:4 Mean?
And another horse goes out, fire-red, and to the one seated upon it is given to take wholeness from the earth, that they slaughter one another, and a great blade is given to him.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.THE KEY
The horse’s power works by removing wholeness until people become one another’s slaughterers.
THE MEANING
Wholeness is removed from the earth, and violence turns people against one another. The rider receives authority to take peace and a great sword, while the killing is carried out in the reciprocal phrase “one another.”
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that peace is guaranteed once it exists: here peace is taken away, and people slaughter each other.
THE ROOT
σφάξουσιν
sphaxousin
GROWS FROM
σφαγ-
slaughter, slay
“slaughter one another” in this verse is sphaxousin. The verb translated “kill” belongs to the Greek slaughter word-family, giving the violence a concrete force. The same verb describes the Lamb as “slain” in Revelation 5:6, linking the mutual killing here with slaughter elsewhere in the vision.
ALSO GROWS
esphagmenon: slain, slaughtered
ἐσφαγμένον
This is the form used of the Lamb in Revelation 5:6, the same verb-family as the people’s killing here.
sphagē: slaughter
σφαγή
The noun makes explicit the violent act held inside the verb translated “kill.”
εἰρήνην
eirēnēn
GROWS FROM
εἰρην-
peace, wholeness
The word translated “peace” is εἰρήνη (eirēnē), meaning peace or wholeness. Its word-family includes both being at peace and making peace, so the verse’s removal of peace stands against a broader language of shared wholeness.
ALSO GROWS
eirēneuō: be at peace, live in peace
εἰρηνεύω
This branch describes peace as a condition between people, the very condition removed from the earth in this verse.
eirēnopoios: peacemaker
εἰρηνοποιός
This branch names one who makes peace, showing that the same word-family holds both the state of wholeness and its making.
THE PATTERN
When wholeness is taken away, violence turns people against one another.
And the three hundred blew the horns, and the LORD set every man's sword against his companion, throughout all the camp; and the camp fled to Bethshittah in Zererath, and to the border of Abelmeholah, to Tabbath.In that day a great tumult from the LORD is among them; each one grasps the hand of his companion, and his hand rises against the hand of his companion.From where do wars and battles come among you? Do they not come from here, from your pleasures that wage war in your limbs?THE THREAD
And I see in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the older ones, a Lamb standing as though slaughtered, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven breaths of God sent out into all the earth.The Greek verb behind “kill” here is the same verb used for the Lamb being “slain” in this vision. One verb connects people slaughtering one another with the slaughtered Lamb.
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