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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Revelation 6:6 - 6:6
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
As it were a voice (hōs phōnēn). “This use of hōs, giving a certain vagueness or mysteriousness to a phrase, is one of the characteristics of the writer’s style, e.g., Rev 8:1; Rev 14:3; Rev 19:1, Rev 19:6” (Beckwith). This voice comes from the midst of the four living creatures, “the protest of nature against the horrors of famine” (Swete).
A measure (choinix). Old word for less than a quart with us, here only in N.T.
Of wheat (sitou). Old word for wheat, a number of times in N.T., in Rev only here and Rev 18:13. This was enough wheat to keep a man of moderate appetite alive for a day.
For a penny (dēnariou). Genitive of price, the wages of a day laborer (Mat 20:2), about eighteen cents in our money today.
Of barley (krithōn). Old word krithē, usually in plural as here. Barley was the food of the poor and it was cheaper even in the famine and it took more of it to support life. Here the proportion is three to one (cf. 2Ki 7:18). The proclamation forbids famine prices for food (solid and liquid).
Hurt thou not (mē adikēsēis). Prohibition with mē and the ingressive first aorist active subjunctive of adikeō. See Rev 7:3; Rev 9:4 for adikeō for injury to vegetable life. “The prohibition is addressed to the nameless rider who represents Dearth” (Swete). Wheat and barley, oil and the vine, were the staple foods in Palestine and Asia Minor.