all the nations whither I have scattered thee, but I will not make a full end of thee; but I will correct thee with judgment, and will by no means hold thee guiltless."
"And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them to destroy them utterly, and to break My covenant with them; for I am Jehovah their God " (Jer. xxx. 1 1; Lev. xxvi. 44).
III. Lastly, before passing on from the 8th verse, just a few words on the significance of the colours of the horses. That they symbolise the mission on which these angelic hosts are about to be sent forth, there can, I think, be no doubt, in spite of Dr. Wright's confident statement that " any attempt to assign any grounds for the employment of the special colours is futile."
The red is significant of judgment, blood, vengeance. It is to an angelic rider on a horse of this colour that a great sword is given, in Rev. vi. 4, to take peace from earth, so that men the enemies of God and of His Christ should slay one another; and in Isa. Ixiii. it is in garments dyed red that the Messiah goes forth in the day of vengeance to tread the nations in His anger, and to trample them in His fury. In our vision it doubtless signifies the same thing namely, the readiness of the Angel of Jehovah to go forth with His angelic cohorts to execute swift judgment on Israel's oppressors.
The exact colour to be understood by the word seruqqim, translated in the A.V. " speckled," or " bay," as in the margin, or " sorrel," as in the R.V., cannot be fixed with certainty.[1] I might fill several pages with the guesses and suggestions and disputations on this word by the learned, but it most probably is meant to describe a mixed colour a combination of the first and last mentioned in the passage and would signify that those mounted on these horses were to be sent forth on a mission of a mixed character namely, of judgment and mercy; while the white is the symbol of victory/triumph, and glory (
- ↑ The word does not occur elsewhere in the Hebrew as an adjective of colour.
