Lamentations 4:9
They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field. They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
Those struck down by the sword are better off than those struck down by hunger, for death by starvation is worse as a slow, prolonged and lingering wasting in which its victims pine away for want of food and the produce of the field.
It portrays the terrible famine of Jerusalem's suffering and destruction under the Babylonians.
That suffering shows the Jews then endured tribulation as great as the tribulation connected with Jerusalem's later destruction.
That equality shows the Jews were not the elect who experienced the greatest tribulation spoken of in Matthew 24.
Its picture of wasting death through lack of food supports that famine is represented by the black horse's color.