Revelation 2:10

Revelation 2:10. An exhortation not to fear the things which it was about to suffer. Fresh persecution was immediately to arise. The children of God are not comforted amidst their troubles by the assurance that these are about to pass away. It may often happen, on the contrary, that one wave of tribulation shall only be followed by another. Strength and comfort are to be found in other thoughts. The tribulation to be expected is then further specified. It shall proceed from the devil, a name of Satan chosen with a reference to the calumnies and slanders previously alluded to. Under that name he is ‘the accuser of the brethren' (Revelation 12:10; comp. Job 12; Zechariah 3:1-2). But the devil is not only to slander them. He is about, it is said, to cast some of you into prison, prevailing upon the heathen powers, ever ready to listen to accusations against the Christians, to visit them with this punishment. Further, he is to do this in order that ye may be tried. It is not that they may be ‘proved.' God proves His people. Satan tries them; and this trial shall come from his hands, to be the means, if possible, of effecting his Satanic purposes. Their tribulation, they are told, shall be one of ten days (comp. Daniel 1:12).

By these words we are neither to understand ten literal days, nor ten years, nor ten separate persecutions stretching over an indefinite period of time. Like all the other numbers in the Apocalypse, the number is symbolical. It denotes completeness, yet not the Divine fulness of the number seven. They are to have tribulation frequent, oft repeated, lasting, it may be, as long as life itself, yet alter all extending only to this present scene, the course of which may be best marked by ‘days' that are ‘few and evil' (Genesis 47:9; Job 8:9; Psalms 90:12; comp. 1 Peter 1:6).

Be thou faithful unto death, that is, not merely during the whole of life, but even to the extremity, if necessary, of meeting death.

And I will give thee the crown of life, that is, the crown which consists in ‘life' (comp. 2 Timothy 4:8), in life corresponding to the life of Him of whom we have been told in Revelation 2:8 that He ‘rose to life.' This last consideration ought alone to be sufficient to determine whether we have here the crown of a king or that of a victor in the games. It is not the latter, but the former (comp. chaps, Revelation 4:4; Revelation 5:10), the crown of the Lord Himself (chap. Revelation 14:14; comp. Psalms 21:3-4). The use of the word stephanos, not diadema, seems to flow from the fact that the crown spoken of is not the mere emblem of royalty, but of royalty reached through severe contests and glorious victories, its garland crown. ‘So should desert in arms be crowned.'

In addition to this, however, we may well include the thought of the Hebrew crown of joy, the crown with which Solomon was crowned ‘in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart' (Song of Solomon 3:11). Yet there, too, we must remember there is the thought that Solomon had won his bride.