Revelation 6

The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.

The first four seals

¹ And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals; and I heard one of the four living creatures saying, like the sound of thunder, "Come and see." ² And see, a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer. ³ And when He opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, "Come." ⁴ And another horse went out, fiery red; and to him who sat on it was granted to take peace from the earth, that people should slay one another; and there was given to him a great sword. ⁵ And when He opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, "Come and see." And see, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. ⁶ And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, "A measure of wheat for a denarius, and three measures of barley for a denarius; and do not harm the oil and the wine." ⁷ And when He opened the fourth seal, I heard the fourth living creature saying, "Come and see." ⁸ And see, a pale horse, and he who sat on it, his name was Death, and Hades followed him. And authority was given to him over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, and with famine, and with death, and by the beasts of the earth.

The fifth seal: the souls under the altar

⁹ And when He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of Elohim and for the testimony of the Lamb which they held. ¹⁰ And they cried with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Master, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" ¹¹ And a white robe was given to each of them; and it was said to them that they should rest a while longer, until both their fellow servants and their brothers, who would be killed as they were, should be complete.

The sixth seal: the great day of wrath

¹² And I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the whole moon became like blood. ¹³ And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind. ¹⁴ And the heaven departed like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. ¹⁵ And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the commanders, and the rich, and the mighty, and every slave and free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, ¹⁶ and they said to the mountains and the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! ¹⁷ For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?"

Notes

• 6:2 Zechariah saw horses of different colors sent out over the earth (Zechariah 1:8; 6:1-3), and the four riders here follow that picture. Who the rider on the white horse is has been read in different ways: some see the Messiah or the spread of the good news (compare 19:11), others a conqueror who imitates Him, since the riders that follow bring war, famine and death. In the Majority Text the living creatures say "Come and see" at the first, third and fourth seals and "Come" at the second; many modern Bibles read "Come" each time.
• 6:6 The "measure" is a choinix, a little over a liter, about one person's daily ration of grain, and a denarius was a laborer's pay for a day ("a denarius a day," Matthew 20:2): a whole day's work would buy bread for one. The Torah had warned of bread eaten "by weight" in a time of judgment (Leviticus 26:26). Oil and wine, from deep-rooted olive trees and vines, are spared.
• 6:8 "Pale" is chlōros, the yellowish-green color of a sick or dead body. The four means of death echo the "four severe judgments" of Ezekiel 14:21, "the sword, famine, wild beasts and pestilence"; "death" here, as often in the Greek translation of the prophets, means deadly disease.
• 6:9 The blood of the sacrifices was poured out "at the base of the altar" (Leviticus 4:7), and the lives of the faithful who were killed are seen there, as offerings to Elohim. Students of the Bible read this scene differently: some see in it the conscious state of believers between death and the resurrection, others a vision-picture, like Abel's blood crying from the ground (Genesis 4:10). Here the Majority Text reads "the testimony of the Lamb," where many Bibles read only "the testimony."
• 6:12 The signs are those the prophets gave before the day of Yahweh: "The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of Yahweh" (Joel 2:31), and "the heavens will be rolled up like a scroll… like the withered fruit from the fig tree" (Isaiah 34:4). Yeshua spoke of the same signs "immediately after the tribulation of those days" (Matthew 24:29).
• 6:17 The cry repeats Hosea's words, "and they shall say to the mountains, 'Cover us!' and to the hills, 'Fall on us!'" (Hosea 10:8), which Yeshua also used (Luke 23:30). Students of the Bible differ on where this scene falls in the order of the end; some read "the great day of His wrath has come" as marking the start of Elohim's wrath after the signs in the sky. The Majority Text reads "His wrath," where many Bibles read "their wrath."

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