Greek text is αὐτοῖς――_to them_. There are many MSS., however, which read αὐτῷ――_to him_. So Professor Stuart reads it. The authority, however, is in favour of _them_ as the reading; and according to this, death and his train are regarded as grouped together, and the power is considered as given to them collectively. The sense is not materially varied. ¶ _Over the fourth part of the earth._ That is, of the Roman world. It is not absolutely necessary to understand this as extending over _precisely_ a fourth part of the world. Comp. Re. viii. 7‒10, 12; ix. 15, _et al._ Undoubtedly we are to look in the fulfilment of this to some far-spread calamity; to some severe visitations which would sweep off great multitudes of men. The _nature_ of that visitation is designated in the following specifications. ¶ _To kill with sword_. In war and discord――and we are, therefore, to look to a period of war. ¶ _And with hunger._ With famine――one of the accompaniments of war――where armies ravage a nation, trampling down the crops of grain; consuming the provisions laid up; employing in war, or cutting off, the men who would be occupied in cultivating the ground; making it necessary that they should take the field at a time when the grain should be sown or the harvest collected; and shutting up the people in besieged cities to perish by hunger. Famine has been not an unfrequent accompaniment of war; and we are to look for the fulfilment of this in its extensive prevalence. ¶ _And with death._ Each of the other forms――“with the sword and with hunger”――imply that _death_ would reign; for it is said that “power was given to _kill_ with sword and with hunger.” This word, then, must refer to death in some other form――to death that seemed to reign without any such _visible_ cause as the “sword” and “hunger.” This would well denote the pestilence――not an unfrequent accompaniment of war. For nothing is better fitted to produce this than the unburied bodies of the slain; the filth of a camp; the want of food; and the crowding together of multitudes in a besieged city; and, accordingly, the pestilence, especially in Oriental countries, has been often closely connected with war. That the _pestilence_ is referred to here is rendered more certain by the fact that the Hebrew word דֶּבֶר, _pestilence_, which occurs about fifty times in the Old Testament, is rendered θάνατος, _death_, more than thirty times in the Septuagint. ¶ _And with the beasts of the earth_. With wild beasts. This, too, would be one of the consequences of war, famine, and pestilence. Lands would be depopulated, and wild beasts would be multiplied. Nothing more is necessary to make them formidable than a prevalence of these things; and nothing, in the early stages of society, or in countries ravaged by war, famine, and the pestilence, is more formidable. Homer, at the very beginning of his _Iliad_, presents us with a representation similar to this. Comp. Eze. xiv. 21: “I send my