6:3 When the Lamb broke the second seal on the scroll, John heard the second living creature order the second horseman forward.
6:4 The red horse probably symbolizes bloodshed and war. The rider of this horse removes peace from the earth and begins war. There do not seem to me to be sufficient similarities between this red horse rider and the one in Zechariah 1:7 to identify them as the same individual. The one in Zechariah is probably the Angel of the Lord.254
If we observe the Olivet Discourse parallelism, the time when peace ends is probably before the middle of the Tribulation (cf. Matt. 24:6-7a; Mark 13:7-8a; Luke 21:9-10). This is, therefore, not a reference to the termination of peace with Israel that Antichrist will affect, which will signal the middle of the Tribulation and the beginning of the Great Tribulation (cf. Matt. 24:15).
The large sword (Gr. machaira megale) represents authority to slay people. War on the earth will follow the manifestation of Antichrist. The warfare in view here seems to be what Ezekiel described in Ezekiel 38 and 39 as the battle of Gog and Magog.255
