Footnote

d What Jesus spoke of as “great tribulation” and “a tribulation” in its first application was the destruction of the Jewish system. But in verses that apply only to our day, he used the definite article “the,” saying “the tribulation.” (Matthew 24:21, 29; Mark 13:19, 24) Revelation 7:14 termed this future event “the great tribulation,” literally “the tribulation the great.”