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The black horses - This refers to the second chariot; of the first the angel makes no mention, because the empire designed by it had ceased to exist. This had red horses, to show the cruelty of the Chaldeans towards the Jews, and the carnage they committed in the land of Judea.
The black - Cyrus, at the head of the Persians and Medes, bringing devastation and death among the Chaldeans, called the north in many parts of Scripture.
The white - Alexander, who was splendid in his victories, and mild towards all that he conquered.
The grisled - The Lagidae or Ptolemies, who founded an empire in Egypt; of these some were good, some bad, some despotic, some moderate, some cruel, and some mild, represented by the party-coloured horses.
The black horses which are therein go forth - Literally, “That chariot wherein the black horses are, these go forth.” Jerome: “Most suitably is the first chariot, wherein the red homes were, passed over, and what the second, third, fourth did is described. For when the prophet related this, the Babylonian empire had passed, and the power of the Medes possessed all Asia.” Red, as the color of blood, represented Babylon as sanguinary; as it is said in the Revelation, “There went out another horse, red, and power was given to him that sat thereon, to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another, and there was given him a sharp sword” Revelation 6:4. “The black” were to go forth to the north country, the ancient title of Babylon. For Babylon, though taken, was far from being broken. They had probably been betrayed through the weakness of their king‘s. Their resistance, in the first carefully prepared (Herodotus, iii. 150) revolt against Darius, was more courageous than that against Cyrus: and more desperate.
Since probably more Jews remained in it, than returned to their own country, what was to befall it had a special interest for them. They had already been warned in the third vision Zechariah 2:7 to escape from it. The color black doubtless symbolizes the heavy lot, inflicted by the Medo-Persians; as in the Revelation it is said, “the sun became black as sackcloth of hair” Revelation 6:12; and to the beast in Daniel‘s vision which corresponded with it, it was said, “Arise, devour much flesh” Daniel 7:5; and in the Revelation, “he that sat on the black horse” Revelation 6:5-6 was the angel charged with the infliction of famine. Of the Medes, Isaiah had said, “I will stir up the Medes against them (Babylon), which shall not regard silver; and gold, they shall not delight in it. Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children” Isaiah 13:17-18.
The white went forth after them - For the Greek empire occupied the same portion of the earth as the Persian. White is a symbol of joy, gladness Ecclesiastes 9:8, victory Revelation 6:2, perhaps also, from its relation to light, of acute intelligence. It may relate too to the benevolence of Alexander to the Jewish nation. “Alexander used such clemency to the conquered, that it seemed as though he might be called rather the founder than the destroyer of the nations whom he subdued.”
And the grizzled - The Romans in their mingled character, so prominent in the fourth empire of Daniel, “go forth” Daniel 2:41-43 to the south country, that is, Egypt; as Daniel speaks of “the ships of Chittim” Daniel 11:30 and the intervention of the Romans first in regard to the expulsion of Antiochus Epiphanes from Egypt; in Egypt also, the last enduring kingdom of any successor of Alexander, that of the Ptolemies, expired. “30 years afterward, the Son of God was to bring light to the earth. The prophet so interweaves the prediction, that from the series of the four kingdoms it is brought to the Birth of the Eternal King”.