Horses in the Word

One has off and on mentioned that the horse represents the understanding, and especially the spiritual understanding and that of the Word, so today we will take a closer look at that noble animal and the paraphernalia attached to it, being of course the chariot and the horseman.

In brief, the horse represents understanding, the chariot doctrine, and the horseman intelligence; hence the numerous references to these three things. We are even to eat them, along with various captains and men of war, in the supper of the great God! This of course means making spiritual understanding, intelligence, and doctrine a part of our theory and practice and thus of our spiritual bodies.

In Hosea the Word promises, "I will make Ephraim to ride" (10:11) -- that is, will teach Ephraim how to ride a horse -- which has been thus stated on account of what we have already covered, Ephraim as the intellectual faculty in the believer and the Church as a whole; vs Manasseh as the will faculty of the same. So making Ephraim to ride means instructing the intellectual faculty as to the nuts and bolts of spiritual life. 

On this account, we see horse in the reversed position likewise:

"In that day, saith the Lord, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness" (Zechariah 12:4).

This verse, as you can see, involves a concatenation of predicates of the understanding: astonishment, madness, eyes, people, blindness. All of these mentions involve the understanding, so that one personally thinks of a verse in which many predicates of the will or else the understanding occur as a predicate cluster; which term one uses for convenience in teaching, like the term predicate substitution. 

For instance, we read of the tribe Asher that "his bread will be fat" (Genesis 49:20), which clusters two predicates of the will -- bread and fat -- and underlines thus the nature of Asher as a representative of charity or love. 

To return to our verse, the horse which has been smitten with astonishment etc. involves a perverted understanding of the Word and of spiritual life. The reference to the eyes of the Lord opening has much the same significance as light flooding into a room and revealing that all which it previously contained was... darkness! Spiritual enlightenment's arrival discloses that what previously masqueraded as such was mere darkness.

A similar reversal of the correspondence horse occurs in Hosea:

"Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods: for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy" (14:3).

We see reference to Asshur, horses, hands, and gods, another cluster of predicates of the understanding. Asshur was a city in Assyria and has the same significance, being reasoning in spiritual matters; but since it is also a city, this  reasoning has to do with the specific object of doctrine. False doctrine will not save us. We will not ride upon perverted understandings nor say to the work of our unenlightened self-intelligence, You are our truths: for in the Lord those who lack good find an abundance of the same. 

We have looked at a few instances of horse in the reverse position, especially because the first of these from Zechariah so obviously involves the understanding in its reference to astonishment, madness, eyes and blindness; making it a convenient classroom globe. But let us also look at some positive references, this for instance:

"15 And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do?

16 And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.

17 And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.

18 And when they came down to him, Elisha prayed unto the Lord, and said, Smite this people, I pray thee, with blindness. And he smote them with blindness according to the word of Elisha" (2 Kings 6:15-18).

Here we have a city of true doctrine from the Word surrounded by a host of false doctrines and perverted understandings. This sort of host can occasion genuine fear and anxiety on the part of people trying to do and understand the right thing. Just look at how many babbling voices fill the air with rubbish about the Word, and they barely understand even basic matters like eating and drinking!

But truth remains more powerful than falsehood, however numerous the host of those who believe in the latter, and Elijah makes this clear representatively by telling the servant not to fear and praying for his eyes -- that is, the servant's spiritual understanding -- to be opened and consequently enlightened as to how the situation appears in its true light.

A mountain involves love, as does fire; whether in the upright sense as love of God and the neighbor or in the reversed sense as love of self and the world. So here we have an intertwined series of predicates of the will and understanding which means, in translation, loving lives  full of right understanding of spiritual matters and of doctrines about love. We see a bald statement of this exact same concept expressed in Paul:

" And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; 10 That ye may approve things that are excellent" (Philippians 1:9-10).

The former passage simply expresses the matter in narrative form, the latter baldly; following the usual procedure of in one place being more cryptic and in another clearer.

We see the same thing elsewhere in 2 Kings:

"11As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire with horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up into heaven in a whirlwind.

12As Elisha watched, he cried out, “My father, my father, the chariots and horsemen of Israel!” And he saw Elijah no more. So taking hold of his own clothes, he tore them in two" (2 Kings 2:11-12).

The doctrine of love to God and the neighbor and the understanding of the same, practiced in one's life, convey us to Heaven; even as a chariot of fire whirled Elijah away from his successor. Because both men represent divine truth and the Word, Elisha utters the lamentation "My father, my father, the chariots and horsemen of Israel!" before taking upon himself the same representation of the Word previously done by Elijah.

So now we have a basis for appreciating why four horsemen should ride out of the book sealed with seven seals, the Word, once the Lamb or Divine Human Christ has opened it:

"6 And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.

2 And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer" (Revelation 6:1-2).

This particular white horse is the same white horse we elsewhere in Revelation see explicitly described as ridden by the Word of God (Revelation 19:11-16). All of these horsemen represent stages in the understanding of the Word of a Church generally speaking and of the Christian Church in particular. The white horse involves a healthy understanding of the Word as to the good and true which it teaches and which we are to practice.

The bow represents the doctrine of good and truth whereby sins and errors are conquered in temptation; so that the reward of overcoming in temptation, a happy eternity, has been described as a crown.

The beast which says "Come and see" has not been explicitly identified, however in context it is the beast with the face of a lion; because a lion in the upright position involves the power of truth from good, which aligns with the other correspondences in the white horse section and the meaning thereof. 

"3 And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.

4 And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword" (Revelation 6:3-4).

The red horse involves the understanding of the Word and of spiritual life destroyed as to good. Red represents good or evil in the Word, here red in the reversed position so evil. For instance, the Lord tells us, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal" (Matthew 6:19). Here sin and error have been encoded as moth and rust because the rust, being red and in the reversed position, represents evil; with the moth being a flying thing and thus ideation that is worthless and a mere support strut for evil.

The great sword given to the second horsemen represents falsehood from evil, because great involves either good or evil and a sword either truth combating or falsehood combating. So here the sword represents falsehood born of evil which destroys the understanding of the Word to such an extent that it muddies the waters of how to apply it to living a good and loving life.

Obviously, we want peace do we not? In the Church, we seek peace through the living of a good life; so if falsehood has destroyed the understanding of the Word as to good, it follows as a consequence that the peace of living a good life has also been destroyed.

Moreover, the second beast which says to "Come and see" is the calf, which animal involves affection and love; and thus, as it were, love itself calls upon us to witness the destruction of love by falsehood in the Church. 

"5 And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.

6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine" (Revelation 6:5-6).

This third horseman involves the understanding of the Word in the Church destroyed as to truth; with almost no truth left standing after this destruction being represented by a tiny weight in the balance. Specifically the wheat involves good and the barley truth, hence we will often see these grains mentioned side by side; and the meaning here is that truth and good are consequently but little understood and regarded. 

The voice in the midst of the four beasts is the Lord Himself, and by thus issuing a warning not to hurt the oil and wine He announces that the interior meaning of the Word in its relation to good and truth will be protected. For it should be emphasized that all of these beasts represent what the Church calls guards on the Word lest people who do not belong there enter into the interior meaning with full consciousness of what they have done.

If people living an evil life know from the heart that they have encountered divine truth, and refuse to practice it, then this lays them open to profanation of the sacred; the result of which is a dreadful eternity. So the Lord protects people unwilling to practice divine truth from understanding and acknowledging it from the heart, and preventing access to it by those who would thus destroy themselves and others.

In another sense, this is the last phase in the 4 quarter prophetic life cycle of the Church in which there is any vestige of the Heavenly marriage of good and truth which conjunction marries to the Lord and introduces us into Heaven. Once the oil and wine have been hurt in this second sense, the Church properly speaking no longer exists and a mere Whore with the appearance of a Church remains.

We will look at this a second time when covering the Parable of the Good Samaritan and specifically the portion where he pours oil and wine into wounds. One further aspect of the third horse bears mention, the fact that the third beast with a human face has said "Come and see"; which, since the human face means intelligence, underlines the fact that the passage involves truth, and specifically truth destroyed.

As for the final horsemen, this is the point when the Church is just a Whore and spiritually damned. So one will not go into detail about this except to note that at this point there is no more truth or love to speak of in the group calling itself a Church; whatever outward appearances of beautiful buildings and pious language might suggest to the contrary.

 But we have gone on sufficiently today from a foundation of looking at horses to these four in particular. 

So to conclude, we will talk a little about prophecy and fear. As everyone knows, popular culture assumes these horsemen involve horrible disasters destined to destroy human civilization with, consequently, much death and suffering. But real explanation of prophecy does not make people afraid and has nothing to do with massive death and destruction. 

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love" (1 John 4:18).

Prophecy is not exempt from this rule! It is just as important to cast out fear from interpretations of prophecy as from anywhere else in the Word; and even more so due to the violence and dramatic language with which prophecy expresses itself.

Bluntly speaking, you can know that a given interpretation of prophecy is false if it does nothing to enlighten you about love and spiritual life; but merely makes you afraid and reduces you to wallowing in mere human politics and natural cataclysms.

Any interpretation of prophecy which makes you afraid of the future is null and void.

Remember whenever you hear about the four horsemen of the apocalypse to substitute 'revelation' and not 'cataclysm'! We are dealing here with the four horsemen of the revelation, not of any such natural disaster.

May this be helpful to your understanding of prophecy and the Word. Amen.

Appendix:

"It was common knowledge in the ancient churches 1 that this is what chariots and horses meant, because they were representative churches; 2 for the people of those churches, the knowledge of symbolism and representations 3 was the primary form of knowledge. The meaning of a horse as understanding spread from these churches to the wise in surrounding lands, especially into Greece. This led to the practice of characterizing the sun, where they placed their god of wisdom and intelligence, as riding in a chariot drawn by four fiery horses. 4

Not only that, when they described the god of the sea, 5 since the sea meant the store of knowledge that arises from the understanding, they gave him horses, too; and when they described the way knowledge arises from the understanding, they imagined a winged horse that broke open with its hoof a spring attended by nine virgins, who were the various types of knowledge. 6 In fact, they knew from the ancient churches that a horse meant understanding, that wings meant spiritual truth, that a hoof meant something factual arising from the understanding, and that a spring meant a theological principle that gave rise to knowledge. The Trojan horse stood for a thing contrived specifically by the understanding, the purpose of which was to breach walled defenses" (White Horse 4).