Meaning
for which see AFFLICATION, B, No. 4, is translated "tribulation" in the RV (for AV, "affiction") in Mar 4:17, Mar 13:19; plural in 2Th 1:4, AV, "tribulations," RV, "afflictions;" in Act 14:22 "many tribulations" (AV, "much tribulation"); in Mat 24:9, "unto tribulation" (AV, "to be afflicted"); in 2Co 1:4, 2Co 7:4, 2Th 1:6, AV, "tribulation" for RV, "affliction;" RV and AV, "tribulation(-s)," e.g., in Rom 2:9, Rom 5:3 (twice); Rom 8:35, Rom 12:12, Eph 3:13, Rev 1:9, Rev 1:2-10, Rev 2:22.
In Rev 7:14, "the great tribulation," RV, lit., "the tribulation, the great one" (not as AV, without the article), is not that in which all saints share; it indicates a definite period spoken of by the Lord in Mat 24:21, Mat 24:29, Mar 13:19, Mar 13:24, where the time is mentioned as preceding His second advent, and as a period in which the Jewish nation, restored to Palestine in unbelief by gentile instrumentality, will suffer an unprecedented outburst of fury on the part of the antichristian powers confederate under the Man of Sin (2Th 1:2-12; cp. Rev 1:12-17); in this tribulation Gentile witnesses for God will share (Rev 7:9), but it will be distinctly "the time of Jacob's trouble" (Jer 30:7); its beginning is signalized by the setting up of the "abomination of desolation" (Mat 24:15, Mar 13:14, with Dan 11:31, Dan 12:11).
Note: For the verb thlibo, in the Passive Voice rendered "suffer tribulation" in 1Th 3:4, AV (RV, "suffer affliction"), see AFFLICT, No. 4.
