Revelation 6 Footnotes

6:1–8:1 The scroll in the Lamb’s hand (5:7) is not open for viewing until all seven seals have been removed. Six of those seals are removed in chap. 6. The two scenes in chap. 7 (7:1-8 and 7:9-17) form an interlude prior to the removal of the seventh seal (8:1). There is much parallelism between this section and the section of Jesus’s Olivet discourse (Mt 24:4-14). If both passages are referring to the same events and timing, the unsealing sequence in Rv 6:1–8:1 occurs prior to the great tribulation (7:14).

6:1-8 The lifting of the first four seals is portrayed as four horsemen. There is debate as to whether any or all of what is pictured here has already taken place. While conquest (v. 2), widespread warfare (v. 4), and devastating effects from famine on economies (vv. 5-6) have occurred throughout history since the first century AD, no catastrophe has devastated a full fourth of the earth (v. 8).