Revelation 6
Revelation 6 is the sixth chapter of the Book of Revelation or the Apocalypse of John in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is traditionally attributed to John the Apostle, but the precise identity of the author remains a point of academic debate. This chapter describes the opening of the first six of the seven seals. The opening of the seventh seal is recorded in chapter 8. Four horses and their riders, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, emerge as the first four seals are opened. Text. The original text was written in Koine Greek . This chapter is divided into 17 verses. Textual witnesses. Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are among others: The First Four Seals (6:1–8). The opening of the first four seals does not yield the content of the scroll, which can only be read after all the seals are opened, but serves as a preparation that recalls 'the beginning of the birth pangs' in . The choenix appears to have been the food allotted to one man for a day; while the denarius was the pay of a soldier or of a common labourer for one day (, "He agreed  with the labourers for a penny a day," and Tacitus, 'Ann.,' 1:17, 26, "Ut denarius diurnum stipendium foret." Cf. Tobit 5:14, where drachma is equivalent to denarius). The choenix was the eighth part of the ""modius"", and a denarius would usually purchase a modius of wheat. The price given, therefore, denotes great scarcity, though not an entire absence of food, since a man's wages would barely suffice to obtain him food. Barley, which was the coarser food, was obtainable at one third of the price, which would allow a man to feed a family, though with difficulty. A season  of great scarcity is therefore predicted, though in his wrath God remembers mercy (cf. the judgments threatened in , viz. the sword, pestilence, and famine; also the expression, "They shall deliver you your bread again by weight"). The corollary to the preceding sentence, with the same signification. It expresses a limit set to the power of the rider on the black horse. These were typical articles of food (cf. , "That he may bring forth food out of the earth; and wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man 's heart;" and , "The corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth"). Wordsworth interprets, "The prohibition to the rider, 'Hurt not thou the oil and the wine,' is a restraint on the evil design of the rider, who would injure the spiritual oil and wine, that is, the means of grace, which had been typified under those symbols in ancient prophecy (), and also by the words and acts of Christ, the good Samaritan, pouring in oil and wine into the wounds of the traveller, representing human nature, lying in the road." 'Αδικήσῃς ἀδικεῖν in the Revelation  invariably signifies "to injure," and, except in one case, takes the direct accusative after it (see ; ; ; ). Nevertheless, Heinrich and Elliott render, "Do not commit injustice in the matter of the oil and wine". Theologian H. W. Rinek renders, "waste not". The vision is a general prophecy of the future for all time (see on verse 5); but many writers have striven to identify the fulfilment of the vision with some one particular famine.