"When He opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, "Come!" And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider's name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth.
(Revelation 6:7-8)
The fourth horse is pale, as a symbol of terror. He is named Death, and Hades, the abode of the dead follows him. The fourth calamity is the most terrible yet, and indeed includes many of the features of the preceding three. The four categories, death, famine, pestilence, and wild beasts, echo (Ezekiel 14:21)~{For thus says the Lord GOD: How much more when I send upon Jerusalem my four disastrous acts of judgment, sword, famine, wild beasts, and pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast!}
The calamities grow in intensity, warming up to the final judgment of the Second Coming. But as yet there is still a limit: only a fourth of the earth.
(Vern Poythress)
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