Verse 8
John next saw an ashen (lit. pale green) horse the color of a human corpse. Presumably Antichrist, the cause of this death, is the rider since his name is "Death." [Note: Swete, p. 88; Lange, p. 165; Lenski, p. 224; et al.] "Hades," which claims unbelieving people’s immaterial part at death, followed on his heels. Death claims the material part of the person and Hades the immaterial part. Perhaps John saw Hades following Death as a man on foot followed a mounted warrior grimly gathering in his victims, or as a hearse followed a horse.
God gave death and Hades authority to take one-fourth of the world’s population. This evidently is the total number that will die as a result of all the catastrophes predicted so far. These catastrophes are war, the resulting famine, and disease. Attacks by wild animals will also contribute to the death rate (cf. Jeremiah 15:2-3; Jeremiah 24:10; Jeremiah 29:17-18; Ezekiel 5:12; Ezekiel 5:17; Ezekiel 14:21). Presently the world’s population is about five billion people. These initial calamities would reduce that number by one and one-half billion. It seems that nuclear war could play some role in this devastation since so many people will die in these judgments.
Beale believed the four devilish forces and their four kinds of woe falling on a fourth of humanity represent "all the ways that death can come and which all result in death." [Note: Beale, p. 382.]
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