They could kill “with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth.” These are the same four disastrous acts of judgment the Lord determined to send upon Jerusalem in the days of her apostacy (Ezekiel 14:21). These four in turn are drawn from the curses the Lord promised on Israel if they would break his covenant (see Leviticus 26:1–46; Deuteronomy 28:1–68).
8 And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth.