The soul underneath the Altar, though really dead and therefore unconscious (for "the dead know not anything” Ecc. 9:5), are represented as speaking. They are supposed to utter a demand for vengeance upon their enemies, whose death-dealing power had, after a long interval of peace, broken out against the "partakers with the “Altar" afresh. "Until when.
John informs us, that when the Lamb opened the fifth seal he saw the Altar and souls underneath it. There are two apocalyptic altars pertaining to the apocalyptic temple — the thusiasterion of the priest’s court, and of the Holy Place.
This fifth seal comes in between the expired political judgments of the fourth and the renewed judgments of the sixth. While, in the previous four seals, the Roman heathen were the subject acted upon in their visions, in this, the fifth, it is those who profess the faith of Christ who are the object against which the seal-judgment is directed. The horses and their riders have disappeared from view, and, what is more remarkable, the four living ones also.
Vol. 1., pp. 428, 446
The Sardian state of the Ecclesias, in which things spiritual were "ready to die," merged into that in which the “few names," representative of those who were not “dead,” were the "little strength" — the Philadelphian. The philosophical Christianity and superstition of Satan's synagogue everywhere prevalent. The "little strength" the salt that preserves the Christian community from utter corruption — Apoc. 3:7.
John informs us, that “authority was given to Death and Hades to kill by wild beasts upon the fourth of the earth.” In commenting upon this, Mr. Elliott says: “There is just one of the destroying agencies mentioned in the vision that is passed over without notice by the historian — that of the wild beasts of the earth.” This idea of Mr.
A. Death and Hades kill with Sword
When John beheld these two symbolical powers, Death and Hades, he saw that “exousia, authority was given to them to kill upon the fourth of the earth, with sword, and with famine, and with pestilence, and under the beasts of the earth.” The phrase, “the fourth of the earth,” implies other three fourths.
John says, that he saw ho Hades, following with Death.
John says that the name of the representative personage he saw sitting above, over, or upon, epano, the pale horse, was “Death.” The form of words in which he tells us this is according to the form of the previous seals.
Vol. 1., pp. 428,443
Spiritual death overshadowing the ecclesias from long peace and the philosophical “divinity” which had, to a great degree, superseded the gospel. The things that remain not yet dead, “ready to die.” The Thyatiran, or Jezebel-and-Satan, ethics, the seed which ripens into the Sardian — Apoc. 3:1.
ACT IV. — SEAL-PERIOD FOURTH
Apoc. 6:7,8