Revelation 6

Ironically, the Lion from the tribe of Judah—Jesus—becomes the Lamb. The implication is that the battle he won wasn’t through military warfare. It was through a sacrificial death and resurrection. Jews observed Passover by sacrificing a lamb. Jewish leaders orchestrated the crucifixion of Jesus the same day the Passover holiday began.

More literally, “Don’t harm the oil and the wine.” Scholars debate the meaning of this phrase. Some say it could mean that olive oil and wine were reserved for the rich, or perhaps the oil and wine were reserved for worship rituals. One intriguing link to history is that Emperor Domitian in AD 92 ordered half the vineyards plowed up so farmers could use the land to grow grain. He did this because there was a grain shortage in the empire. His order generated so much pushback that he had to cancel it.

Literally, “Hades.” The word picture this seems to paint is of Grave walking behind Death and picking up the corpses that Death kills.

The white robe might represent the promise of victory, some scholars say, since Roman generals often wore white after winning a battle. Others say it may represent the fact that God has declared them spiritually pure. Some say the robe is a symbol that God is giving these souls their new celestial body ahead of time, before Judgment Day. White, on the other hand, may simply be the preferred color in God’s kingdom.

Scholars call this a storm theophany. A theophany is a visible manifestation of God or God’s power. This manifestation is just a sample of what’s coming in humanity’s unwilling march to Judgment Day. Bible scholars refer to this as the eschaton (ESS-kah-tawn), the end of God’s plan for this world—and the end of the world as we now know it.

Peter said this would happen when he preached his famous sermon that launched the Christian movement. Peter quoted an earlier prophet, Joel 2:31, when he told people gathered around him in Jerusalem, “‘Here’s what will happen in the end,’ God says. . . . I’m going to show the world remarkable sights in the sky. . . . The sun will go dark, the moon blood red’” (Acts 2:17, 19-20).

This is not the description of a meteor shower, some scholars say. In the context of what else John is saying, this reads like a reference to something the prophet Isaiah wrote: “The sun, moon, and stars will dissolve, and the sky will be rolled up like a scroll. The stars will fall like dead leaves from a vine or dried-up figs from a fig tree” (Isaiah 34:4, New Century Version).

The Greek word describing what happens to the mountains and islands can mean either “removed” or “moved,” as in jostled by the earthquake. But given what else John is describing here, the context might fit better with the mountains and islands disappearing, like the sky does.

The Middle East is a rocky place with lots of caves. David and his men hid from King Saul in the caves of En Gedi, along the west shore of the Dead Sea (1 Samuel 24).

This is more literally “the great day of their wrath.” Many Bible experts link this phrase to the common Old Testament warning that prophets gave about the coming “day of the Lord,” which the prophet Joel described as a “great and terrible day” (Joel 2:31, New Living Translation). Great for God’s devoted people; bad for everyone else.

For the answer to this last question, see Revelation 7:9.