Revelation 6:5 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Revelation 6:5

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Black in Scripture is the colour of sadness, sorrow, mourning. This seal is about need, famine, inequality, extortion. The text goes on to say that grain which had previously been sold by the barrel, is now being sold by weight. It is scarce; you only just get enough. ‘A measure of wheat for a penny [a denarius], and three measures of barley for a penny.’ This was something like eight to fifteen times the going rate. The penny – the denarius, in Greek – was a day’s wages. With it you can buy only enough to last for a day. That means people are living on the breadline. The symbol is about hardship and shortage. At times it is the people of God who experience this first, though this is often true of all society. There are regions of the world where getting enough to eat is a daily anxiety. So you only get a day’s measure for a day’s pay. You’re not starving, but you can only just get by, whereas some people know plenty. At the same time other luxury foods are protected: ‘and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.’ What is going on here? It is a depiction of a corrupt society in which the poor find that the basic necessities of life are in desperately short supply, and yet at the same time the rich take steps to ensure that certain foods which are their predilection are readily available. Some are overcharging and exploiting the needy, but they are careful to make sure they don’t suffer any shortage. The rich line their pockets. The Bible is not saying this is what barley will cost at any particular time. It is making this a picture of exorbitant prices and exploitation. Through the history of world there will always be inequality: a great gap between rich and poor. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have a good try at making sure that everyone has enough. But extortion will be another feature of human society – individuals just looking after themselves. The rich won’t care about the poor. You cannot stop it. Fanciful politicians get carried away and say we will end poverty. It is a good thing to try. You can pour in as much as aid as you like, but there will always be those who embezzle.

Application

This is going to stand for famine, not just famine in terms of food – famine is going to be the figure, the symbol – but in all kinds of oppression. Where there is persecution of God’s people, often it is Christians who are at the bottom of the pecking order. This is not just about food, but there will be all kinds of measures taken against believers. There are countries where Christians cannot get anything other than manual jobs. Because they are believers, and they don’t belong to the party or trade guild, or they don’t conform in some other way, they are excluded in some way. Because they are not worldlings; and they are not in the club, as it were, of the world, then people either dislike you or take measures against you. There are believers who can’t get promotion, because they are believers. Generally speaking, in the history of the world, the people who are to inherit heaven, the people who have riches that cannot be measured, the people that have true happiness and peace and glory and destiny, will in some shape or form have a hard time, and be denied and be disadvantaged. That is the imagery, and there are times when it will grind hard and deep. God will permit exploitation, but he won’t allow any spiritual hurt.

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Revelation 6:5 Commentary and Bible Study