What are the ten days of tribulation in Revelation 2:10?

Rev. 2:10. — “Fear nothing (of) what thou art about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give to thee the crown of life.” “Fear not,” or “nothing,” is a word of preparation for yet further trials, and is evidently taken from Revelation 1:17. There it fell on the ear of the fainting Seer, carrying absolute and unqualified assurance to his soul; here it is to reassure the Church in view of the gathering storm about to burst upon it. Tribulation and poverty were bad enough, and hard to be borne. But worse still was in store. The closing imperial persecutions exceeded in savage cruelty the former ones. The dark clouds were gathering; the wild, hoarse roar of the coming storm was heard. Here the Church is forewarned and encouraged. These coming trials are traced from false accusers, and from the instruments and agents of cruelty to the devil. Persecution was his work. But faith rests on this mighty and grand sustaining truth that “Power belongeth unto God” (Ps. 62:11). The power of the devil is limited and controlled, and he cannot put forth his hand and touch even the feeblest lamb of the flock without express permission (Job 1 and 2). “There is no power but of God” (Rom. 13:1), whether satanic or human. The use and employment of the power is another question, involving responsibility of the gravest character. God’s purpose was that His Church might be tried, and that to the utmost, and to this end the devil was His servant. Thus God’s saints were purified. Love, faith, courage, and faithfulness were strengthened. The Church had a definite and appointed period of tribulation — “ten days.” There may be here an allusion to the well-known “ten persecutions,” and also to the tenth under Diocletian, which lasted just ten years. The expression “ten days” signifies a limited period, a brief time inconsistent with the lengthened period of pagan persecution covering 250 years. The following references to “ten days” will confirm the meaning of the term as implying a brief and limited time: Genesis 24:55; Nehemiah 5:18; Daniel 1:12; Acts 25:6; Jeremiah 42:7, etc.

SMYRNA. Nothing is said here in the way of disapproval; the church is in a time of persecution, and is encouraged by Christ in the midst of it. Persecution may be used to make manifest what is real, and to draw the soul nearer to the Lord. The saints are exhorted to be faithful unto death, and Christ would give them the crown of life. Historically this church represents the period of persecution that set in under Nero. The 'ten days' of Rev. 2:10 may represent ten different persecutions, or refer to ten years' duration of persecution under Diocletian. In any case it gives the idea of limitation.

Ten Days. — A determinate period of suffering and persecution.

(V. 10). The attack by corruption having failed, the devil was permitted to resort to violence, as the Lord says, "The devil shall cast some of you into prison." The violence of the devil may indeed be painful to God's people but it is safer for them than the wiles of the devil. The Lord allows this attack, for, as Peter says in his Epistle, the saints may indeed be "in heaviness through manifold temptations," "if need be." If, however, the Lord sees a "need be" for the trial, He will also put a limit to the trial: so we read, "Ye shall have tribulation ten days." So, too, Peter says these manifold trials are but "for a season." The devil may be allowed to cast some into prison, but he cannot go a day beyond the Lord's ten days.

The Lord encourages them to have no fear of their sufferings, of their imprisonment by the devil, or whatever else. He limits the tribulation to ten days (v. 10), ten speaking of responsibility (as in the ten commandments). This indicates that their afflictions would not go beyond what they could bear, though these afflictions would be severe. Let them be faithful even in the face of threatened death, for death could not hinder His giving them a crown of life, life that is not merely temporal, but eternal.

"Fear none of these things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life" (Rev.2:10). Thus the Lord further encouraged the Church of Smyrna to be faithful to Him unto death and not to fear the things the devil would cause them to suffer. Christ was allowing Satan to persecute them for a limited time, figuratively, ten days. He was allowing it for their spiritual and eternal good. How good to know that our God is over everything, over all the devices, power and purposes of the enemy, and that only what He allows falls upon us, and only as long as He allows it.

The prophetic, stipulated ten days of tribulation were fulfilled in the ten different edicts of persecution against the Christians under ten Roman Emperors, beginning with Nero and ending with Diocletian. The last persecution of ten years duration was the most violent of all as the enemy sought to uproot and wipe out Christianity. But under the Emperor Constantine the persecution ceased entirely around 313 AD.

He reveals, moreover, the form of the coming trial. Through the activity of the devil some of them should be cast into prison, where they should have the honour of suffering for the name of Christ, being counted worthy to suffer shame for His name. But wherefore? That they might be "tried." In such ways the Lord purifies His own from the contaminations of the world, tests their faith, and brings out what is lying dormant in their hearts. Even the Lord Himself trod the path of temptation. He was tempted in all points as we, apart from sin; and He could thus say, "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me." But we, alas! like Peter, often do not know ourselves until we find ourselves in the presence of the enemy; and it is on this very account that we need to be tried, both to learn what we are, and then what God is for us in the trial.

Another thing is revealed for their comfort. If Satan was about to be let loose upon them, the trial should be limited. The tribulation should only last for ten days.* Lastly, the Lord promises the crown of life to those who should be faithful unto death. It is essential to perceive that this fidelity unto death is not faithfulness throughout our natural lives, but martyrdom for the sake of Christ and His word. It is an exhortation to be faithful, even at the cost of life; as, for example, Stephen and James, the brother of John, were, and as thousands since their day have been, by the grace of God. It is this character of fidelity the Lord urges upon this assembly in the circumstances of tribulation, through which she soon would have to pass; for there are many saints Who would find the prospect of death, a death of martyrdom, a death, in the eyes of men, "of shame and loss" — the most searching test to which they could be subjected. He who knoweth our frame, and remembereth that we are dust — yea, more, who is touched with a feeling of our infirmities — provides therefore the antidote; cheers His people, in view of the impending trial, and incites them to constancy and courage, with the promise of the crown of life. One perceives instantly the blessed adaptation of the promise to the circumstances. What would constitute the temptation to unfaithfulness? The fear of death, or a clinging to life in this world. It is to meet this, and to raise the thoughts of any of His own who might be feeble and despondent about the present, that He speaks to them of the crown of life — life in its full fruition, crowned, as it were, with His own special approbation; life, eternal life, disencumbered from all entanglements, feasting to the full on its own proper objects, displayed in all its perfections in its own proper sphere in the Lord's own presence, where, conformed to His own image, those who have been faithful unto death here will enjoy the special place in glory which the Lord in His grace may award. This is the crown of life.†

The "ten days" of tribulation doubtless had reference to some definite but limited period of trial that lay before the church in Smyrna as the first century drew to its close. From the extended prophetic point of view the reference would be to the successive outbursts of persecution during the first few centuries, which are said to have numbered ten, and ended under the Emperor Diocletian. These persecutions had the effect, under God's governmental hand, of checking the downward trend in the church and preventing the inrush of worldliness that later engulfed it, stimulating "first love" rather than extinguishing it. This accounts for no reproof being administered to the church in Smyrna. The much-needed lesson for us is that tribulation is the normal thing for Christians, if they are disentangled from the world, even as Paul states in 2 Timothy 3:12. The "Great Tribulation" is another thing altogether.

The ten days' tribulation in the message to the Smyrnean angel comes first in order. Here it is felt that caution is needed; for men like the late Mr. E. B. Elliott* would carefully eschew such evidence. It is well known that they deny the seven Apocalyptic assemblies to be types of the main varying phases of the church on earth [Rev. 2 and 3] till the Lord takes His own on high. Here therefore is a rent among both futurists and historicalists, some on the two sides owning, many rejecting, the larger view of these churches. Yet there are those even of the latter school who, in accordance with the acknowledgment of their application to distinct stages in the church's history, interpret these ten days {Rev. 2:10} of the ten years' persecution under Diocletian, the most remarkable in the early times of the church. So, after speaking of the Seventy Weeks, the late Mr. G. S. Faber says: "We find likewise that the Apocalyptic ten days' persecution of the church of Smyrna has been similarly proved by the event to mean, not a persecution of ten literal days, but a persecution of ten mystical days; that is to say, the persecution of ten years which is recorded by Eusebius, and Lactantius, and Orosius." (Sacred Calendar, 1. 45, 46). Homogeneity is supposed to require a similar construction of the various other numbers of these two prophets. It is notorious however that many, even in early times, interpreted the ten days of the ten persecutions down to Diocletian, as others recently in more general terms. The real thought appears to give the persecuted the comfort of knowing that it was limited, a meaning familiar to the reader of scripture from Genesis to Daniel. But on the prolonged scheme one need not set aside the general facts more than this.

This limiting of Satan’s power and malice comes clearly out in the Revelation, where those who have the word of God and the testimony of Jesus are a suffering people. “Ye shall have tribulation ten days” was the word to the suffering church at Smyrna. Before the persecutions began God set a limit to them. It is thought that these ten days refer to the ten great persecutions under the Roman Emperors, whether that is so or not matters little, what does matter is that the time was fixed, the tribulation was to be for ten days not twelve. And when the Beast arises, and it is given to him to make war on the saints, his time is limited, “power was given to him to continue forty and two months” (Rev. 13). And when the devil is cast out of the heavens into the earth, “he knows that be has but a short time” (Rev. 12:12).