Revelation 2:10,11 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer Probably by means of the false Jews. Behold This intimates the nearness of the affliction; the devil Who sets all persecutors to work, and those more particularly who persecute the followers of Christ, to imprisonment, torture, and death; shall cast some of you Christians at Smyrna, where, in the first ages, the blood of many martyrs was shed; into prison, that ye may be tried Which God will permit, for the trial of your faith and patience, to your unspeakable advantage, 1 Peter 4:12; 1 Peter 4:14. And ye shall have tribulation Either in your own persons, or by sympathizing with your brethren; ten days That is, a considerable time: for, as Lowman observes, It is not to be understood literally, which would have been a short time of affliction indeed, and hardly agreeable to such a description of that tribulation as this prophecy seems to have been intended to prepare the church for. Bishop Newton supposes that these ten days mean ten years, according to the usual style of prophecy; and that the persecution of Dioclesian is referred to, which lasted that time, and was the greatest persecution that the primitive church ever endured, most grievously afflicting all the Asian, and indeed all the eastern churches. This persecution, he thinks, and none of the other general persecutions, answers the character here given, none of the others lasting so long as ten years. Be thou faithful Our Lord does not say, till I come, as in the other letters, but unto death Signifying that the angel of the church should quickly after seal his testimony with his blood, fifty years before the martyrdom of St. Polycarp, for whom some have mistaken him. And I will give thee a crown of life The peculiar reward of them who are faithful unto death. He that overcometh That is victorious unto the end; shall not be hurt of the second death Though he may encounter the first death in this world for my sake, he shall not be injured by the second, namely, the lake of fire, the portion of the fearful, who do not overcome, Revelation 21:8; but he shall rest in everlasting security and peace, while those who desert the cause of Christ, and renounce their duty, for the preservation of this transitory life, shall be consigned to that state of misery where they shall seek death, but it shall for ever flee from them.