The Tribulation, the Great — What It Means

Ask when "the great tribulation" is, and the English phrase itself will steer the answer. It reads like one fixed name for one fixed event, and every verse that sounds like it gets pulled into the same slot.

The Greek does not cooperate with that habit. Matthew does not use "the." Revelation does — in its own context. That is the stinger for this whole discussion, and it deserves to be examined slowly. Two books, two settings, two vocabularies, and two contexts — both about the end times, one in high detail and one in fewer details. Neither issues a title. And because Revelation is the high-detail account, the linking must run in its direction: we cannot flatten Revelation into Matthew; we need to link Matthew into Revelation where it fits.

What Each Text Actually Says

Matthew 24:21 reads "great tribulation" (θλῖψις μεγάλη) — no "the": "For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be" (Matthew 24:21, KJV). The sentence is a "there shall be," anchored in time by "then" — the abomination of desolation He has just named (Matt. 24:15) — and made specific by the comparison: "such as was not." Jesus is describing something: an unmatched tribulation at a marked point. A caution cuts both ways here: Greek routinely leaves out "the" in a "there shall be" sentence, so its absence is not proof of vagueness. Matthew's tribulation is specific — but its specificity is carried by the unique description, not by an article.

Revelation 7:14 reads "out of the tribulation, the great" (ἐκ τῆς θλίψεως τῆς μεγάλης) — Greek says "the" twice, once before the noun and again before "great." Greek does that when it wants the weight to fall on the description: not merely a tribulation that happens to be great, but the tribulation, the great one. This is the only place in the New Testament where the phrase carries the definite form. The KJV's "out of great tribulation" under-translates the articles, which is why the URV renders them exactly: "they who are coming out of the tribulation, the great" (Revelation 7:14, URV).

So the two texts are doing two different things. Matthew describes; Revelation points. The question is what Revelation is pointing at.

A Designating Pattern in Revelation

The doubled "the" of 7:14 is not a one-off. A pattern runs through the book, marking major entities the same way:

• the city, the great (Rev. 17:18; 18:10)
• the day, the great (Rev. 6:17; 16:14)
• the river, the great — Euphrates (Rev. 9:14; 16:12)
• the winepress, the great (Rev. 14:19)
• the supper, the great — of God (Rev. 19:17)
• the tribulation, the great (Rev. 7:14)

And watch how the family behaves: every member designates an entity inside Revelation's own narrative. The great city is a city in the book's story. The great day is the day the book's war arrives at. The great river is the river of the book's plagues. The great winepress and the great supper are the book's own scenes. None of them reaches outside the book to designate someone else's sentence.

Honesty requires a grading note: unlike the great city, which recurs again and again, the tribulation, the great appears once. Its membership in the family rests on the form matching and on its setting — an elder is identifying this multitude to John, and identification is exactly where a designation belongs. But if it behaves like its family, then it designates the tribulation of Revelation's own unfolding — the seven years the book frames — and the multitude is coming out of it at its eve, before the seal plagues begin.

That is how Matthew links into Revelation, rather than the reverse. Matthew's described peak — the unmatched tribulation after the abomination — sits inside Revelation's designated span, at the point Revelation gives it: the beast's war on the saints (Rev. 13:5-7), in the second half. The high-detail book supplies the frame; the fewer-detail account drops into its place within that frame.

A Word with Types and Degrees

None of this makes tribulation a technical term. Scripture uses it as a word with types and degrees. "In the world ye shall have tribulation" (John 16:33, KJV). "We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22, KJV). John writes as a "fellow partaker in the tribulation" (Revelation 1:9, URV). That is the ordinary tribulation of all saints.

Then the degrees climb. Smyrna is promised a counted, local tribulation: "that you all may be tested; and you all shall have tribulation ten days" (Revelation 2:10, URV). Thyatira's adulterers are threatened with "great tribulation, except they repent" (Revelation 2:22, URV) — the same word-pair as Matthew, without the "the," for a church-discipline judgment. Acts 7:11 uses it for the famine of Joseph's Egypt, "great affliction" (Acts 7:11, KJV). Same words, different referents, different sizes.

Revelation teaches the reader to expect this kind of climb. Its earthquakes escalate across the plague sets — an earthquake at the seventh seal (8:5), an earthquake with great hail at the seventh trumpet (11:19), and at the seventh vial the peak: "a great earthquake, such as was not since man was upon the earth, of such magnitude an earthquake, so great" (Revelation 16:18, URV). Notice how the peak is marked: with the unprecedented-superlative formula, "such as was not."

Matthew carries the same escalation inside itself. Jesus speaks of tribulation twice in the discourse: "then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted" (Matthew 24:9, KJV) — the word behind "afflicted" is the tribulation word, θλῖψις — before the abomination, and then "great tribulation" after it (Matthew 24:21, KJV). He frames the whole sequence as "the beginning of sorrows" (Matthew 24:8, KJV) — birth pains, which by their nature intensify.

And His superlative concedes the class: "such as was not" only makes sense if there are other great tribulations to be surpassed. Of the many, His is the worst. Nor is the formula His invention. Daniel marks the same peak the same way: "there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered" (Daniel 12:1, KJV). Jeremiah too: "Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it" (Jeremiah 30:7, KJV). Trouble is a class with degrees, and the prophets mark its worst member with a superlative.

The Hour and the Tribulation

Revelation gives the same span another designation, from another side.

Philadelphia is promised: "I also will keep you from the hour of testing, which is about to come upon the whole inhabited-world, to test those who dwell upon the earth" (Revelation 3:10, URV). The Greek marks it the same way — "the hour of the testing, the one about to come upon the whole inhabited-world" (τῆς ὥρας τοῦ πειρασμοῦ τῆς μελλούσης ἔρχεσθαι). And this hour is designated, not counted. When Revelation counts, it scopes with a number — "one hour" with the beast (17:12), "ten days" of tribulation (2:10) — and the number means precision. When it designates, it uses the article: the hour of the testing (3:10), "the hour of his judgment" (14:7), "the hour to reap" (14:15). An "hour" designated is a season; "one hour" counted is an hour.

Now connect the testing to the tribulation, because the book itself does. The only other place Revelation uses the testing word is Smyrna's promise — "that you all may be tested; and you all shall have tribulation ten days" (Revelation 2:10, URV) — testing and tribulation welded in a single clause. By the book's own pairing, "the hour of the testing" can stand as a synonym for the hour of the tribulation — which connects it to "the tribulation, the great" of 7:14.

A translation can hide this connection or show it. The URV shows it: "tested" at 2:10 and "the hour of testing" at 3:10 are the same English word, as they are the same Greek one. The KJV splits them into "tried" and "temptation," and the link goes quiet.

Word order does the same work. In Greek the nouns come first: the hour of the testing, the tribulation, the great. "Hour" and "tribulation" meet the reader before anything describes them, and the echo between the two phrases is audible. Put the adjective in front — "the great tribulation" — and the noun is buried and the connection fades. Nor would this be the only time Revelation binds one thing together under different wording: the temple opening of the seventh trumpet is "the temple of God… in heaven" with "the ark of his testament" in 11:19, and "the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven" in 15:5 — the same image in different words, marking the same moment.

So the one span carries two designations, one for each side of it. From the saints' side it is the tribulation, the great — and the multitude comes out of it. From the earth-dwellers' side it is the hour of the testing — and it comes upon them, "to try them that dwell upon the earth," the book's standing term for the settled, rebellious class (6:10; 8:13; 13:8; 17:8). Kept out of the hour (3:10) and coming out of the tribulation (7:14) describe one deliverance at the span's opening.

One more thing worth noticing, because it cuts against an easy assumption. Matthew has the word "hour" too — the same Greek word (ὥρα) — and uses it three times in this very discourse. But never once for the tribulation. Every one is about the timing of the coming, and about that timing being unknown: "of that day and hour no one knows" (Matthew 24:36, NASB 1995), "the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will" (Matthew 24:44, NASB 1995), and the servant's master arriving "at an hour which he does not know" (Matthew 24:50, NASB 1995).

So both books have both words. Matthew has "tribulation" and "hour"; Revelation has "tribulation" (7:14) and "hour" (3:10). What differs is what each book does with them. In Revelation the hour names the span. In Matthew the hour names what nobody can date. Shared vocabulary, different work — which is worth holding onto when a shared phrase starts to look like a shared reference.

Matching Systems, Not Just Words

The shared wording between Revelation 7:14 and Matthew 24:21 is a real match, and it should be weighed — it is not nothing. But it is not everything. A term matching is one detail; the systems must match too. The details taken together, the pattern of escalation, the sequence of events, and the context of each passage all play a part.

And when the phrase is pulled from two different books, the bar rises further. Revelation 7:14 could be pointing at the very thing Jesus describes — nothing in either passage forbids it. But the shared phrase is the whole of what would carry that connection, and one phrase across two books is thin ground. What would strengthen it is corroborating detail, and Revelation 7 does not supply any: the scene carries none of the markers of the Matthew 24 crisis: no abomination (Matt. 24:15), no flight (Matt. 24:16-20), no shortening of days lest no flesh be saved (Matt. 24:22), no beast, no image, no mark, no war on the saints (Rev. 13:7). Revelation 7 does not even mention death — the multitude is never called "lives" or "souls" (ψυχαί) and never said to be slain, the very markers Revelation uses for its dead (Rev. 6:9; 20:4). They are coming out, washing their robes, and being sheltered (Rev. 7:14-17).

The same rule cuts both ways. Revelation 7 is not detached into vagueness either: its own context — the sealing, the timing of Revelation 14:1-8, the exit before the seal plagues — places the designated tribulation's opening right there. And the book anchors the scene with its own furniture: the multitude's arrival is met by a sevenfold praise from the angels around the throne — "The blessing, and the glory, and the wisdom, and the thanksgiving, and the honor, and the might, and the strength" (Revelation 7:12, URV) — mirroring the sevenfold praise of Revelation 5:12, "the might, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing" (URV), sung by the same host in the same throne setting as the Lamb takes the scroll, before a single seal is opened. Two sevenfold doxologies, one cast, one setting: the arrival scene stands beside the pre-seal throne scene. Context assigns each passage its place; the term alone assigns nothing.

Weighed that way, the two passages belong to the same class — great tribulation — and the case for collapsing them into one event rests on the phrase by itself, which is not enough to establish it. That is a statement about the evidence, not a verdict against the possibility. Matthew describes the unmatched peak; Revelation designates the span; and on the reading set out here the peak sits inside the span, where Revelation puts it.

Why This Matters

Flattened into one English name, the passages collide: Thyatira's judgment must somehow be the end-times crisis, and the multitude of Revelation 7 must somehow exit an event Jesus places after the abomination. Read as each one is written, every passage stands where it is: the church's ordinary tribulation (John 16:33), ten counted days at Smyrna (Rev. 2:10), a congregation's great tribulation (Rev. 2:22), the designated span the multitude exits at its opening (Rev. 7:14), and the unmatched peak after the abomination (Matt. 24:21; Rev. 13:7).

Two books, two vocabularies, one story. Matthew describes; Revelation designates. Link the described peak into the designated span where the high-detail book places it, and nothing collides at all. Whether Revelation 7:14 also has in view the tribulation Jesus describes is a question the phrase alone cannot answer — and the reading here does not need it answered either way.