Red Horse
When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, "Come and see!" Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword.
— Revelation 6:3-4˄ NIV
The rider of the second horse is often taken to represent War or mass slaughter. His horse's color is red (πυρρός, from πῦρ, fire). In some translations, the color is specifically a "fiery" red. This color, as well as the rider's possession of a great sword, suggests blood that is to be spilled. The second horseman may represent civil war as opposed to the war of conquest that the first horseman is sometimes said to bring. Other commentators have suggested it might also represent persecution of Christians.
Read more about this topic: Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse
Famous quotes containing the words red and/or horse:
“Take a red book called TELEPHONE,
size eight by four. There it sits.
My red book, name, address and number.
These are all people that I somehow own.
Yet some of these names are counterfeit.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“To long for that which comes not. To lie a-bed and sleep not. To serve well and please not. To have a horse that goes not. To have a man obeys not. To lie in jail and hope not. To be sick and recover not. To lose one’s way and know not. To wait at door and enter not, and to have a friend we trust not: are ten such spites as hell hath not.”
—John Florio (c. 1553–1625)