Spoke 4 - Dalet - Fourth Seal: Death
And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the
fourth beast say, Come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that
sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the
fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death,
and with the beasts of the earth.
The Fourth Seal (Revelation 6:7f)
Death first appears in Genesis 4. This integrates with the the Fourth Seal which is
part of a natural sequence followed by the first four of the Seven Seals:
A Conqueror (Seal 1) causes War (Seal 2) which results in Famine (Seal 3) followed by
widespread Death (Seal 4). It is deeply integrated
with the Dalet Alphabetic Verses. A very similiar sequence
which also is explicitly associated with the Number Four
is seen in the Word of the Lord given through the Prophet Ezekiel on Spoke 4:
For thus saith the Lord GOD; How much more when I send my four sore
judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and
the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast?
Ezekiel 14:18 (Spoke 4, Cycle 2)
The sequence differs but little from that given in the Four Seal. The same pattern and its
explicit connection is repeated in Jeremiah 15.2f:
Thus saith the LORD; Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword,
to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for the captivity,
to the captivity.
And I will appoint over them four kinds, saith the LORD: the sword to slay, and the
dogs to tear, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and destroy.
Jeremiah 15.2f
The link between Death and the Number 4 is made explicit in the text of Scripture in the story of the
Resurrection of Lazarus. We read:
When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping
which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, And said,
Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see.
Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him! And some of them said,
Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should
not have died? Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave.
It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone.
Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh:
for he hath been dead four days.
Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the
glory of God? Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted
up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest
me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou
hast sent me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he
that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a
napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.
John 11.33f
All of this links the Rabinbic tradition that a person is not really dead until three days have passed,
that is, until the Fourth Day.
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