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TRIBULATION

A term designating affliction of various kinds (Heb. ṣar, ṣārâ; Gk. thlípsis). In the OT it is the expected fate of the righteous (Ps. 34:19[MT 20]; 71:20) and often came upon Israel from political enemies (1 Sam. 10:18-19). It was regarded as an integral part of the salvation history of Israel and something from which God was to deliver the people, even if it originated with God as a punishment for disobedience (Exod. 3:9-10; Deut. 4:30-31). In the intertestamental literature tribulation refers to the suffering of the righteous (2 Apoc. Bar. 15:8; 1QH 2:6-12; 5:12) as well as the last Great Tribulation before the day of the Lord (1QM 1:12; 15:1). In the NT the tribulation that belonged to Christ is the lot of those who follow him (John 16:33; Col. 1:24; 1 Thess. 3:3; 2 Tim. 3:12). It produces endurance (Rom. 5:3) and glorification in the Christian (8:17; 2 Cor. 4:7-8, 17). Tribulation is the fate of the wicked both on earth (Rev. 2:22) and in the judgment (Rom. 2:9).

The persecution of the Jews by the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (167 b.c.e.) established the pattern of the tribulation of the faithful by evil forces (Dan. 12:1) which was repeated in the fall of Jerusalem. This persecution will be fully manifested in the Great Tribulation of the last days prior to Christ’s return (Mark 13:14-27 = Matt. 24:15-31). The Tribulation is an intensification of the battle between good and evil in the last days (2 Thess. 2:1-12; Rev. 3:10, 7:14). It is a period of intense persecution of the Church by evil forces epitomized by the antichrist, and the judgment of those forces by God.

Bibliography. S. Harding, “Imagining the Last Days: The Politics of Apocalyptic Language,” in Accounting for Fundamentalisms, ed. M. E. Marty and R. S. Appleby (Chicago, 1994), 57-78; L. Thompson, “A Sociological Analysis of Tribulation in the Apocalypse of John,” in Early Christian Apocalypticism, ed. A. Y. Collins. Semeia 36 (Atlanta, 1986), 147-74.

Duane F. Watson






Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)

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