Bible Dictionaries
Tribulation

Vine's Expository Dictionary of NT Words

for which see AFFLICATION, B, No. 4, is translated "tribulation" in the RV (for AV, "affiction") in Mark 4:17; 13:19; plural in 2 Thessalonians 1:4 , AV, "tribulations," RV, "afflictions;" in Acts 14:22 "many tribulations" (AV, "much tribulation"); in Matthew 24:9 , "unto tribulation" (AV, "to be afflicted"); in 2 Corinthians 1:4; 7:4; 2 Thessalonians 1:6 , AV, "tribulation" for RV, "affliction;" RV and AV, "tribulation(-s)," e.g., in Romans 2:9; 5:3 (twice); 8:35; 12:12; Ephesians 3:13; Revelation 1:9; 2:9,10,22 .

In Revelation 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 Matthew 24:21,29; Mark 13:19,24 , 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 (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12; cp. Revelation 12:13-17 ); in this tribulation Gentile witnesses for God will share (Revelation 7:9 ), but it will be distinctly "the time of Jacob's trouble" (Jeremiah 30:7 ); its beginning is signalized by the setting up of the "abomination of desolation" (Matthew 24:15; Mark 13:14 , with Daniel 11:31; 12:11 ).

Note: For the verb thlibo, in the Passive Voice rendered "suffer tribulation" in 1 Thessalonians 3:4 , AV (RV, "suffer affliction"), see AFFLICT , No. 4.