What does 'a measure of wheat for a penny' mean about how hard a worker must work in Revelation 6?
The phrase indicates famine and inflation so severe that an average field worker must work a full day, sunup to sundown, just to earn enough money to buy enough bread to sustain himself for the next day's work. It reflects rationing and a devastated food supply.
Les explains that the black horse indicates famine and rationing. He asks what happens if the great food-production areas are knocked out—such as the North American continent's Great Grain Belt, citrus groves, California, Russia, and Ukraine—and concludes the world's food supply is almost annihilated, leaving the rest of the world with no food, so it will be so limited that there is absolute famine. The verse's language boils down to this: the average field worker must work a full day from sunup to sundown just to earn enough money to buy enough bread to work the next day. This is runaway inflation caused by a shortage of goods and a tremendous decrease in the production of foodstuffs. Famine is accompanied by disease, as seen in Africa and Somalia, going hand in glove with death; the fourth pale horse ties these together.