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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - Revelation 6:4 - 6:4
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Red (πυῤῥός)
From πῦρ fire. Flame-colored. Compare 2Ki 3:22; Zec 1:8. Only here and Rev 12:3.
To take peace from the earth
Compare Mat 10:34; Mat 24:7.
Kill (σφάξωσιν)
See on Rev 5:6.
Sword (μάχαιρα)
Compare Mat 10:34. In Homer, a large knife or dirk, worn next the sword-sheath, and used to slaughter animals for sacrifice. Thus, “The son of Atreus, having drawn with his hands the knife (μάχαιραν) which hung ever by the great sheath of his sword, cut the hair from the heads of the lambs.... He spake, and cut the lambs' throats with the pitiless brass” (“Iliad,” iii., 271-292). It is used by the surgeon Machaon to cut out an arrow (“Iliad,” xi., 844). Herodotus, Aristophanes, and Euripides use the word in the sense of a knife for cutting up meat. Plato, of a knife for pruning trees. As a weapon it appears first in Herodotus: “Here they (the Greeks) defended themselves to the last, such as still had swords, using them (vii., 225) Later of the sabre or bent sword, contrasted with the ξίφος or straight sword. Aristophanes uses it with the adjective μιᾷ single, for a razor, contrasted with μάχαιρα διπλῆ, the double knife or scissors. This and ῥομφαία (see on Luk 2:35) are the only words used in the New Testament for sword. Θίφος (see above) does not occur. In Septuagint μάχαιρα of the knife of sacrifice used by Abraham (Gen 22:6,Gen 22:10).