The third horseman, rider of the black horse, brings famine, as Revelation 6:8 confirms by saying this rider has power to kill with hunger, and as Jesus names this seal in the Olivet Prophecy (Matthew 24:7). Black is the biblical color of darkness and foreboding, marking the sickly, mournful look of people enduring want as a judgment from God (Lamentations 5:10; Joel 2:6). The pair of scales, from the Greek zugon (yoke), points both to rationing, since in famine bread is sold by weight (Leviticus 26:26; Ezekiel 4:16), and to fraudulent oppression (Hosea 12:7; Micah 6:11-12). It also recalls God's own weighing of men's deeds and motives (Daniel 5:25). The voice from among the four living creatures is God's, calling out disaster prices: a quart of wheat, a day's food, for a denarius, a day's wage, when a denarius normally bought eight to ten quarts. A worker with a family can afford only barley and can neither get ahead nor stay healthy. Oil and wine, staples rather than luxuries, remain available, but ordinary people cannot afford them. This is a long-term, ongoing famine of undernourishment, in which most people merely get by, as Genesis 3:17-19 foretold. The living creature that introduces this seal has a man's face, a reminder that famine is largely man-made. War destroys farms and commerce, corrupt and oppressive governments like the Soviet system create shortages, and even drought and floods often follow human misuse of the land. Obedience to God's law brings abundance (Leviticus 26), while disobedience brings the curses of scarcity (Deuteronomy 28). The black horseman reaps the seeds of war and oppression, and death follows close behind.

The third horseman, the rider on the black horse in Revelation 6:5-6, represents scarcity and famine and corresponds to the famines Jesus foretold in Matthew 24:7-8. The third seal is opened before the Great Tribulation, as part of the "beginning of sorrows," a phrase that literally means birth pangs. The rider holds a pair of scales to measure and carefully dole out food. The proclamation "a quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius" means staples cost up to ten times the normal price, since a denarius was a working man's daily wage. The command not to harm the oil and wine points to precious necessities; grain, new wine, and oil were the standard staples of life, as Deuteronomy 7:13 and Hosea 2:8 show. The fourth horseman then adds pestilence and death over a fourth of the earth. Famine today is built into the structure of world society, and its scale is unprecedented, with hundreds of millions hungry. Most famines are man-made, caused by sins such as greed, hatred, stealing, and corrupt government. Yet famine is not necessarily a sign that the end is immediate, for Jesus said "the end is not yet." Such suffering only hints at worse to come and shows the world's need for Christ's return. God's faithful people need not fear famine; Job 5:17-22 promises they will laugh at it, free from the anguish and anxiety of anticipating hunger, because God redeems them.