Vv. 7, 8. The fourth seal opened. pestilence and mortality.
Ver. 8. χλωρός, pale or livid as a corpse.—émavw αὐτοῦ, for the ordinary ἐπ᾽ αὐτόν, a grammatical variation which has no special significance. In this Dureresque vignette the spectre of Hades, bracketed here as elsewhere with Death, accompanies the latter to secure his booty
6—10.
39°
σ ~ ~ . καὶ 6 Άδης Ἱ ἠκολούθει Ἡ αὐτῷ ' καὶ ἐδόθη αὐτῷ ἐξουσία ἐπὶ τὸ i. 18, xx.
/ a lol 3 a r3 ς / κ 3 a \ > τέταρτον τῆς γῆς ἀποκτεῖναι "ἐν ῥομφαίᾳ καὶ ἐν λιμῷ καὶ ἐν "θανάτω καὶ ' ὑπὸ τῶν θηρίων τῆς γῆς.
= = q τὴν πέµπτην σφραγῖδα, εἶδον ὑποκάτω τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου τὰς " ψυχὰς
13-14, Hos. xiii. 14, Isa. XVili. 5. Xiv. 13, cf. Luke ix.
g. Καὶ ὅτε ἤνοιξε
A = A 49. τῶν ἐσφαγμένων " διὰ τὸν λόγον τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ διὰ τὴν " µαρτυρίαν τ Instrum.
ἣν εἶχον, 10. καὶ ἔκραξαν φωνῇ µεγάλη, λέγοντες, '΄ Ἔως πότε, ὁ
pestilence (LXX).
of victims. So Nergal, the Babylonian Pluto, is not content with ruling the regions of the dead but appears as an active personification of violent destruc- tion, especially pestilence and war, in- flicting his wounds on large masses rather than on individuals (Jastrow, 66,67). A similar duality of conception, local and personal, obtained in Semitic and Hel- lenic mythology (cf. ε.ρ., ix. II); only, Death is not here personified as an angel (with Jewish theology, cf. Eisenmenger’s Eindecktes ud. i. 854 f., 862 f.). As the chief partner in this grim league, he is given destructive power over a certain quarter of the earth (τὸ τέτ. colloquially) ; his agents are the usual apocalyptic scourges (cf, Ezek. xiv. 21, Ps. Sol. xiii. 2f., with Plut. Istde, 47 for the Iranian expectation of λοιμὸς καὶ λιμός as inflic- tions of Ahriman) against which the Jew- ish evening prayer was directed (“keep far from us the enemy, the pestilence, the sword, famine and affliction”). War, followed by famine which bred pestilence, was familiar in Palestine (Jos. Antiq. xv. g) during the first century Α.Ρ. Indeed throughout the ancient world war and pestilence were closely associated, while wild beasts multiplied and preyed on human life, as the land was left untilled. In Test. Naphth. 8, etc., Beliar is the captain of wild beasts. Note that the prophet sees only the commissions, not the actual deeds, of these four dragoons: not until vi. 12 f. does anything happen. The first four seals are simply arranged on the rabbinic principle (Sohar Gen. fol. 91), “ quodcunque in terra est, id etiam in coelo est, et nulla res tam exigua est in mundo quae non ab alia simili quae in coelo est dependeat”. The four plagues (a Babylonian idea) are adapted from Ezek. xiv. 12 f. Contemporary disasters which may have lent vividness to the sketch are collected by Renan (pp. 323 f.).
Vv. g-11. The fifth seal opened.
Ver. 9. The scene changes from earth to heaven, which appears as a replica of the earthly temple with its altar of burnt offering. As the blood of sacrifices flowed
t Rare with act. verb.
« Abbott, Diat. 23324.
5 xvili. 8;=
u xx. 4 (cf. Heb. xii. 23). ν 1. 9, Xii. 17.
at the base of the altar (xvi. 7), the blood
representing the life, the symbolism is obvious. It was mediated by rabbinic ideas of the souls of the just (e.g., of
Moses) resting under the divine throne
of glory; cf. R. Akiba’s saying, “' qui-
cumque sepelitur in terra Israel, perinde est ac si sepeliretur sub altari : quicumque autem sepelitur sub altari, perinde est ac si sepeliretur sub throno gloriae”’
(Pirke Aboth, 26). The omission of
᾿Ιησοῦ after µ. may suggest that the
phrase is intended to include not so much the heroic Jews who fell in the defence of their temple against Rome
(Weyland) as pre-Christian Jewish mar-
tyrs (cf. Heb. xi. 39, 40) who are raised