The fourth horseman rides a pale, sickly green horse, the Greek chlooros, the color of a corpse or of plague-stricken skin. His name is Death, and the Greek thanatos here means pestilence or disease. The Septuagint renders the Hebrew deber (pestilence) as thanatos, and Jesus Himself lists pestilences (loimos) among the events leading to His return in Matthew 24:7. Disease is the great killer today. Heart disease, cancer, and other long-term, largely self-inflicted illnesses far outstrip violence and accidents, and medical science still cannot solve the mystery of disease and death. Hades follows Death as an inseparable companion. It is the grave, the place of the dead, and Scripture treats death and the grave as parallel ideas. God will redeem people from the grave in the resurrection. The fourth living creature, the flying eagle, is both a swift hunter and a carrion eater, picturing God as sovereign Judge and the grim results of His judgments for sin. The closing statement, that power was given over a fourth of the earth to kill with sword, hunger, death, and wild beasts, best summarizes the work of all four horsemen. It restates the missions of the red, black, and pale riders. Wild beasts follow naturally, because war, famine, and disease depopulate humanity and let predators multiply, as the curses of Leviticus 26 and Ezekiel 5:17 show. The four horsemen are only the beginning of sorrows. They follow cause and effect: false ideas lead to war, war to famine, and famine to disease. They remind mankind that God still judges sin.