What the Black Horse Means
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One of the basic principles of Bible study is to read slowly, and carefully examine the key words of a passage. Seek to absorb what you are reading. And remember that the New Testament, originally written in Greek, was only later translated to other languages. Therefore, to more clearly understand the picture of the black horse and rider, we must examine the passage, word by word, occasionally examining the Greek. By doing so, the conditions of an impending global food crisis become clear.
Now read Revelation 6:5-6 again: “I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice…say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny.”
Rev 6:8 explains the meaning of the “black horse” and “rider.” They bring famine or “hunger.” In the rider’s hand is a “pair of balances” to weigh out the meager rations—or “measures”—of food described in Rev 6:6.
Each time the words “measure” and “measures” are used, it is the Greek word choinix. According to Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, the term means “a dry ‘measure’ of rather less than a quart, about ‘as much as would support a person of moderate appetite for a day…’”
In short, the black horse and rider bring conditions that result in daily ration lines!
But how much will the food cost?
The Greek word for “penny” is denarius. A denarius was about a day’s wage for a worker in Palestine 2,000 years ago. So the implication is that one day’s pay—all of it!—is required to buy just one day’s food.
Think of all your monthly expenses: rent or mortgage payment, car payment, utilities, phone bill, cable and Internet access, clothing, gas for your car, and others. Now consider—a whole day’s pay just for that day’s food! If this were the price of food, how would you pay for your other necessities?
Chapters Six and Seven showed that we are in the last days, and this can be proven even more conclusively. World conditions make clear that the black horse is about to accelerate toward the worst famines of all time!
Permanent Famine
Ethiopia’s severe drought in 1984 affected 8 million people, with approximately one million dead. Only after Western nations learned the extent of the crisis did they donate enough grain to end the famine by 1985.
After that time, aid organizations and wealthier nations made a general push to eradicate hunger everywhere. According to the International Food Policy Research Institute’s “2009 Global Hunger Index” (GHI), “Progress was made in reducing chronic hunger in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s.”
However, this effort to erase famine faltered. The report continues, “For the past decade hunger has been on the rise.”
In Ethiopia today, WFP estimates that 46 percent of the population is undernourished. And the GHI warning level is “extremely alarming.”
What began in the 1980s for Ethiopia was something new: pockets of permanent famine. Despite years of foreign assistance, hunger still grips that land. Today, 39 percent of Ethiopians live on less than $1.25 per day. In the last 30 years, farm production has fallen despite the population doubling. Even worse, continual crop failure has meant the nation must rely largely on aid groups for survival.
But Ethiopia is far from alone in suffering continuous drought and famine. Other nations received ratings of “alarming,” “extremely alarming,” and “serious” on the GHI, including Sierra Leone, Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Zimbabwe—once considered a breadbasket of southern Africa—is in the “alarming” category. Citizens in these nations remain under threat of famine due to inconsistent rains, civil unrest, military conflict and infertile land. Ever-worsening famine in these areas cannot be solved!
The country of Niger’s government report to the World Health Organization (WHO) “showed that rates of acute malnutrition among children under five had risen to 17 percent from 12.3 percent in 2009.” The WHO considers figures above 15 percent an emergency. It stated, “A severe form of hunger that can leave children permanently underdeveloped, acute malnutrition affects as many as one in five children in the hardest hit regions of Niger…” Niger’s rise of almost five percent occurred in just one year.
The WFP reported that in Chad, “Poor harvests, erratic rainfall and high food prices have hit countries throughout the Eastern Sahel [belt]…The number of people categorised as ‘food insecure’ in the Sahelian belt of Chad increased from 41 percent of the population in May 2009 to 61 percent in March 2010—just ten months time. WFP is responding with general food distributions to some 850,000 vulnerable people and assistance to pregnant women, nursing mothers and moderately malnourished children in supplementary feeding centres. The number of centres open went up from 36 in March to 52 in June and this figure is expected to increase to around 140 in the coming weeks.”
As devastating as recent African drought has been, history says it can get much worse. A news release from The University of Texas at Austin revealed, “Droughts far worse than the infamous Sahel drought of the 1970s and 1980s are…normal…for sub-Saharan West Africa, according to new research...These decades-long droughts were dwarfed by much more severe droughts lasting three to four times as long, scientists report…”
“According to a 2002 report by the United Nations Environment Program, the most recent Sahel drought killed more than 100,000 people and displaced many more.”
In Bangladesh, the WFP reports that 60 million people do not have sufficient food to eat. Nearly 8 million of its children under five years old are underweight. Make yourself ponder such huge numbers.
In Pakistan, an estimated 1.55 million people have fled their homes due to conflict, especially near the war-torn Afghanistan border. They rely on humanitarian aid for assistance. The World Food Programme reports that 24 percent of its population is undernourished.
The list of nations requiring assistance could go on and on. Since the 1980s, aid agencies and rich nations have used money to stave off hunger in the developing world. But this support system has begun to collapse.
A July 2010 article, “Is the Next Global Food Crisis Now in the Making?”, provided a sobering reality check: “Recent weeks have produced a series of grim and related headlines: Russia has declared a state of emergency because of drought in 12 regions, while in major wheat exporter Ukraine, severe flooding may depress crop yields. Dry conditions threaten Vietnamese rice production. The USDA has projected a disappointingly low Midwest harvest, and China has raised questions on the demand side by doubling its imports from Canada.
“Fortunately, this run of unfavorable farming news follows strong harvests that for now should keep grain prices in check, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. But to see the effects of a bad year for food—and what the world could be in for if the present trend persists—one only has to look to 2008…[when] a confluence of environmental causes compounded by rising fuel costs and a global credit crunch caused food prices to skyrocket an average of 43 percent worldwide, leading to starvation and riots from Mexico to Bangladesh.
“Some are worried that was just a warning” (AOL News).